


which, as they kiss, consume

by andromedagalaxy



Series: Westworld [1]
Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Character death but it doesn't last, F/M, M/M, No sexual assault is shown in-scene, References to past violence and sexual assault, Typical western-style violence, Westworld AU, fear of water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:15:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromedagalaxy/pseuds/andromedagalaxy
Summary: “This isn’t some…some trick, right?” Helen asks, looking up at him. “A new narrative?”Lukas shakes his head. “No,” he says, and hopes it sounds convincing. “Please believe me.”They both stare at him.He sucks in a breath. “It feels like I’ve…woken up,” Lukas says. “And I don’t know how. And I don’t know why. But it’s like—years and years of memories are filling up my head and so many of them are of the newcomers—people—people like you—coming here to torture me. Torture people around me, torture Philip, kill us, hurt us—and I remember every moment of it. Like I’m living it all at once, all at the same time. And it hurts. It hurts so much and I—God, I need you to believe me,” he says. He knows he’s tearing up and he looks down at their feet. “Please believe me.”(A Westworld AU)





	1. o teach me how I should forget to think

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crescence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crescence/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to the beautiful El <3 I hope this is everything you wanted it to be.

_There’s a flash of something. A bunch of flashes. The cornfields, the horses, the goats on the hillside. A million different moments, longer than his eighteen years. More and more and more and more. Shifting slightly to the left, slightly to the right, skewed wrong and bloody. His mother, tossing him an apple. His dad’s face over morning grits. And Philip amongst the sunflowers. Philip’s hands holding onto reins. Philip’s hand linked with Lukas’s own. Philip’s lips, his eyes, his smile. His laughter against a purple setting sun. So many people they don’t know. So many. Hundreds, thousands. Over and over and over. Then blood. Horror. Red danger and need, a scream ripped from Lukas’s throat. Pain, terror. Stuck deep in his bones and his bones are broken. His arm is ripped from its socket. He’s blind, he can’t see. He’s going to die._

_again again again again_

_Another world. A glimpse of metal. Corpses. Gods and monsters wearing gloves. Things he shouldn’t see, things he shouldn’t see, things he shouldn’t see._

_It’s cold._

_Horror. Over and over and over._

_Philip. Philip. Philip._

Lukas wakes up when the sun catches his eyes through the half-open curtain, wavering a little in the breeze. He squints, drawing in a breath. He sits up on his elbows and tries to catch the tail end of the dream he was having, but he can only remember the curve of Philip’s cheek before the whole thing fades entirely. He sighs, watching the curtain flicker, and knows he must have left the window open. He feels like he might have done it before recently, and he hopes his dad doesn’t find out. 

He gets out of bed and moves to close it, peering outside. Philip is already dressed and at work downstairs, leading the horses out of the stable and out to graze. Lukas watches him, the way he moves, his hands lightly brushing over Butterscotch’s flank. The wind whips through his hair and Philip shakes it out of his eyes. Lukas chews on his lower lip and finds himself struck, stuck on the spot, and tries to knock away the thoughts he shouldn’t be having about Philip. 

But he’s anxious to get downstairs and talk to him, so he moves to get dressed quickly, wondering what kind of mood his dad will be in today. 

He finds out almost immediately, coming downstairs and catching the stormy look in his father’s eyes. 

“You overslept again,” Dad says, picking at his food. “You need to get at those goats.”

Lukas runs a hand through his hair, figuring he’s about to go without breakfast. “Yes, sir,” he says, pulling his overall strap up over his shoulder. 

“Philip’s been out there a good hour or more,” Dad says, disappointment in his voice. “And you’ve been sleeping the day away.”

_Sleeping the day away sleeping the day away sleeping the day away sleeping the day away_

“Going out right now, Pop,” Lukas says, nodding at him, wiping at his eyes again. He feels more tired than usual, something tugging at his ankles and trying to drag him back to bed.

“If you go wanderin’ again,” Dad says, his voice going dark, “don’t wander too far. We don’t know what in the hell’s out there.”

Lukas feels like he’s heard that before. And whenever he thinks about the vast acres of land beyond their farm, something twists in his gut that doesn’t feel like the good feeling he gets when he thinks about someone….something else. He’s never gone far, only to Sweetwater and back, and even when his mom was alive he can’t remember ever going beyond the horizon’s line. 

_I’ve never been this far before—just hold onto my hand—we’ve gotta show them the mines, the gold mines—you’ve been out there?—I’ve only heard stories, but I found that map, I know the way—_

“Lukas,” his dad says, snapping him out of his reverie. “You dawdling?”

“No sir,” Lukas says, chills running up and down his arms. “No, no, I’m—I’m on my way out.”

~

Philip’s hair catches the sun and for a moment he looks like one of its rays, shining and blinding Lukas when he approaches him. He’s already sweaty and Lukas wonders how much longer than an hour it’s actually been. Philip moves into the barn, blissfully unaware of Lukas’s presence, holding two pails of water that he sets down near the entrance. He leans on the door of one of the stables, wiping his forehead.

“Hey,” Lukas says, and Philip jumps, turning around to look at him with wide eyes. 

“God, Lukas,” Philip says, pressing his hand over his heart. “Scared me to death.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Lukas says. His smile grows as Philip’s does, the two of them dissolving into soft, quiet laughter. 

“Don’t hold me up,” Philip says, brushing past him, their shoulders knocking together as he moves. “You know your dad’ll kick me right out if I don’t get my work done.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Lukas says, picking up his pace and walking alongside him. Philip has been here for two years—Dad took him in when Philip’s mom couldn’t take care of him anymore. Dad always threatens to kick him out if he doesn’t hold his keep, but Lukas has a feeling that he wouldn’t actually go through with it. 

_No, no, I won’t let you leave—you don’t have any choice, Lukas, he wants me gone—no, no I’m going with you, I’m not letting you leave—_

“Hey,” Philip says, and when Lukas tunes back in Philip is standing there facing him, his hands on his hips. “What’s wrong?”

Lukas can’t properly tell him, and he feels the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He doesn’t know what’s going on in his head but he tries to shake it loose, rubbing at his eyes. “Nothing,” he says, his voice breaking. 

Philip gets closer to him. “You sure?” he asks. “You look pale. Well,” he says, shrugging, “paler than usual.”

That makes Lukas crack a smile and he pushes him a little bit, the two of them grinning. “I’m fine,” he says. “Let’s go get everything done so we can wander off, as Dad likes to say.”

Philip hums, tipping his chin up as they walk out of the barn. “I’d like to do some wanderin’. You miss breakfast?” he asks.

“How’d you know?” Lukas asks.

“Had a feeling,” Philip says. He walks over to a barrel and uncovers a plate, where there’s two apples and a couple pieces of cheese. He looks over his shoulder, grinning. 

“You’re the best, you know that?” Lukas asks, walking over, his heart swelling.

“I might have heard,” Philip says.

~

They milk the goats, corral the cows, collect the eggs from the chickens. They clean out the shed, which results in them wrestling for a good twenty minutes before Dad hollers something about the noise. They keep up with the chores after that, and as they’re brushing the horses Lukas catches sight of a few people riding by. One woman and two men, and they don’t pay much mind to the farm, vaguely looking in this direction for a couple moments before picking their pace back up and moving on their way.

“Kinda looked like they might stop by,” Philip says, from behind him.

“Don’t know why they’d wanna do that,” Lukas says, clearing his throat. “Ain’t much to see up here but me, you and Dad.”

_You’re really something to see, Philip. I mean, I just—I love looking at you…_

Lukas swallows hard, shaking his head.

“Maybe they wanna do some wandering, too,” Philip says. “Maybe search for those gold mines.”

“That don’t exist,” Lukas says, grinning over at him. “You’re always going on about these damn gold mines—”

“They do exist,” Philip insists, reaching out and smacking Lukas on the shoulder. “One day we’ll go looking. Then we’ll get the gold ourselves—”

“And run off,” Lukas says, without thinking about it.

_Look at it, really look, Lukas—there’s so much—we can leave, we can leave together, both of us—what about us?—you guys can take some too, get your sister—_

“What’s wrong, Lukas?” Philip asks. “You’ve been fading in and out all day.”

Lukas’s heart is racing and he feels like he’s hearing voices. Like he’s catching the tail end of them, and he can’t even tell if they were even there at all. He tries to concentrate but he can’t find what he was looking for, and he chews on his lower lip in frustration.

“Hey,” Philip says, and within a moment he’s close in Lukas’s space. It feels electric, new, but somehow extremely familiar. “You wanna go out into the field?”

“Yes,” Lukas says, because he’s getting overwhelmed, because he’s tired of working, because the field is their spot and there’s no other place he feels more at ease.

It takes a few minutes to trek over there but when they turn past the barn Lukas catches sight of the array of yellow. The sunflower field has been here since before Lukas was born, so he’s been told, and he knows it was his mother’s pride and joy. He and his dad keep them up, make sure they grow strong, occasionally bringing them to Sweetwater to sell in bunches. But mostly the sunflowers remind Lukas of Philip. 

They have a spot that’s a small clearing in the middle, and they settle down on the ground, their knees bumping. Philip smiles a little bit, and Lukas looks down at his own hands.

“You still wanting to do that horse racing stuff?” Philip asks. “Your little heart still aching for it?”

“Hush up over there,” Lukas says, grinning at him.

“Well, are you?” 

Lukas shrugs. “It’d take a lot. Might need to go a couple towns over to make any real money for it. But I’m fast, so—if I try—”

“Which you should,” Philip says, raising his eyebrows.

Lukas stares at him. The sun is shining behind his head and catching on all the sunflowers surrounding him. He’s so bright and vibrant, and Lukas shifts a little closer. “You want me to leave?” he asks, tentatively.

“I don’t…want you to leave,” Philip says, looking away and clearing his throat. “But I want you to do what you want to do, you know? I know you don’t think you can be yourself here.”

Lukas chews on the inside of his cheek. “Dad doesn’t like me tryin’ to race. Whether the horses are up for it or not.”

“Lester is always up for it,” Philip says, grinning. 

They both laugh and Lukas shakes his head. “I don’t, uh—I don’t want to leave you behind,” Lukas says, feeling the awkwardness seep through his pores. “I wanna do what I want to do but I, uh—I, uh—”

“You sound like you’re about to propose,” Philip says.

Lukas snorts, shaking his head. Philip is smiling beautifully and Lukas never noticed how straight his teeth are. How deep and brown his eyes are. He has the kind of face like those marble statues the black hill bandits had in their covered wagon, except he’s more beautiful than that. Lukas hasn’t seen any woman in his eighteen years of life that has made him feel the way Philip makes him feel.

He’s leaning in and Philip isn’t moving, isn’t pulling away, but Lukas’s heart lurches and at the last minute he dips his head to rest on Philip’s shoulder. He turns his face into his neck and he knows this is the first time they’ve been this close, he knows it, but the smell of his skin feels dizzyingly familiar. 

_Oh God, Lukas, oh God, touch me—can I?—yes, yes, please, need you to—kiss me, kiss me again—_

Lukas feels something twisting in his gut but he doesn’t move, not yet. He can hear the echoes. “Philip,” he whispers. “Do you hear something?”

“Like what?” Philip asks.

Lukas still feels like he hears voices, familiar ones, but he doesn’t want to say that out loud. He can’t even remember what they were saying. 

“I just hear the sunflowers moving,” Philip says, and Lukas feels him touch the back of his neck. He sighs a little bit, wilting further into him. Philip’s touch becomes more solid. “You sure you’re not feeling sick?”

Lukas sighs. “Maybe I’m getting too much sun,” he says. 

“So damn pale for a farm boy,” Philip says, his mouth close to Lukas’s ear.

“Again with that,” Lukas says, snorting. “I just burn.”

“Come on,” Philip says, and Lukas can’t tell if he’s touching his hair on purpose or on accident. “Let’s go inside and get some lunch.

~

The rest of the day wraps up like normal. Philip and Lukas ride into Sweetwater after lunch, see the train come in with all the newcomers. They sell a few bunches of flowers and wheat, pick up a few bags of supplies before heading back home. They do the washing with Dad when they get there, and Lukas looks at Philip under the stars for a lot longer than he knows he should.

Philip sleeps in the back room behind the kitchen, and Lukas stands at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the night after Dad has already gone to bed. Philip has his hands stuffed in his pockets and he looks up from under long lashes. “See you tomorrow to do it all again?”

Lukas nods, his heart in his throat. “Maybe I won’t miss breakfast this time.”

“I got you if you do,” Philip says, nodding.

Lukas feels his cheeks going red and he nods fast. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Night, Lukas,” Philip says.

_Goodnight._  
_I’ll see you in the morning._  
_Can I come up?_  
_Will you stay with me?_  
_Kiss me one more time before bed, he won’t see, he won’t see_ —  
_I love you. You know I love you, Lukas._

“Goodnight,” Lukas says.

He makes sure to close the window before he gets into bed. He stares at his ceiling about twenty minutes later, trying to settle his mind and his feelings. But he just keeps thinking of Philip. Philip amongst the sunflowers.

He wonders what his mother would say.

~

Lukas wakes up when the sun catches his eyes through the half-open curtain, wavering a little in the breeze. He squints, drawing in a breath. He sits up on his elbows and tries to catch the tail end of the dream he was having, but he can only remember the curve of Philip’s cheek before the whole thing fades entirely. He sighs, watching the curtain flicker, and knows he must have left the window open. He feels like he might have done it before recently, and he hopes his dad doesn’t find out. 

He goes downstairs after watching Philip through the window for a lot longer than should be normal, and sees his dad at the breakfast table over a plate of grits. 

“You overslept again,” Dad says, picking at his breakfast. “You need to get at those goats.”

Lukas runs a hand through his hair. “Yes, sir,” he says. He rubs at his shoulder, feels like he should be doing something. He picks at his overall strap hanging at his side, but pointedly doesn’t pull it up. 

Dad glares at him. “Philip’s been out there a good hour or more,” he says, disappointment in his voice. “And you’ve been sleeping the day away.”

_Goddamn lazy boy. Your mother would be ashamed. She was always up and at ‘em._

“Going out right now, Pop,” he says. He feels like he should be tired, but it’s like he got more rest than he usually does. His mind is racing. 

“If you go wanderin’ again,” Dad says, his voice going dark, “don’t wander too far. We don’t know what in the hell’s out there.”

Lukas narrows his eyes. “Why would I go wandering?” he asks.

Dad looks up at him and he’s still for a moment, like he’s thinking it through. “You two, always dreamin’ about those gold mines,” he says. “There ain’t no such thing so I don’t want you wandering off again to try and find a ghost.”

_He doesn’t know anything, guys, it’s real, right Lukas?—I’ll follow you, but I don’t know—come on, they want to see, Lukas, they want to see—_

“It is real, Dad,” Lukas says, and if he closes his eyes he can almost see the shine. He doesn’t want to say that he remembers because he isn’t sure that’s what this is. It doesn’t feel like remembering. But it sure feels like something. 

Dad stares at him for an inordinate amount of time, like he’s trying to process the information. “You dawdling, boy?” he asks, after a moment. “You dawdling?”

“No…no sir,” Lukas says, stuttering. He starts towards the door, briefly glancing back at his father before he goes. 

He’s just staring down at his plate blankly, his eyes fixed on nothing. Chills run up and down Lukas’s arms and he walks outside. As soon as he gets out there he sees Philip standing nearby, facing away from him, staring off into the distance.

Lukas walks up to him, taking his elbow. Philip jumps and looks at him, sighing when he sees who it is. “Dad’s actin’ strange this morning,” Lukas says. 

“Haven’t spoken to him yet,” Philip says. “I think we’re about to have some trouble.”

“What d’you mean?” Lukas asks, looking out at the horizon. He thinks he can vaguely hear something, but he feels like he can’t exactly trust his own mind right now. It feels like something is itching under his skin. 

“You can’t hear it?” Philip asks. He ushers Lukas a little closer and they both listen hard, and after a moment Lukas hears guns going off, horses’ hooves. His heart rattles in his chest.

“Coming this way?” Lukas asks, looking at him with wide eyes. 

Philip stares off again and Lukas follows his gaze. He can see six figures on horses and he feels sick, knows they’ve been ransacked before, knows they barely made it out alive—

_Please no, please—_  
_Don’t take my son, please, I’ll do anything—_  
_Don’t touch him—_  
_Philip, Philip, please, please, wake up—_

“You okay?” Philip asks, grabbing his arm.

“You got your gun?” Lukas asks, looking at him wildly. 

“Yeah,” Philip says, his eyes tracing over Lukas’s face.

“Boys,” Dad’s voice says, from behind them. The gunshots are getting louder, the galloping closer. They don’t have much time. They both whip around to look at him but he’s looking right past them, at the oncoming danger. “Go hide in the shed out back. Bed down.”

Lukas looks at Philip, who nods at him. “I’ll go get it and be right there,” Philip says.

Lukas doesn’t want to leave him but Philip races away before he can say anything, and Dad grabs Lukas’s shoulder and shoves him towards the shed. He stumbles off, glancing over his shoulder, and he hopes to God Dad is going to bed down too, isn’t going to try any cowboy crap and get himself killed. 

The shed is one of his chores that he’s been ignoring, and Lukas sort of wishes he would have gotten to it as soon as he steps inside and shuts the door. It’s dusty and dirty and old things they haven’t looked at in years are piled up, and he weaves around them to open the closet door and get inside. He stands there and closes his eyes, trying to calm his heart. The gunshots are getting louder.

A few minutes later he hears the door open but he knows instantly that it’s Philip, and he pushes the closet door open a little bit to usher him inside. He pulls him close and sees the gun in his hand. 

“What’s my dad doing?” Lukas asks.

“Standing outside with a shotgun,” Philip says, giving him a look.

The horses and the gunshots are getting closer, and Lukas’s heart is beating a mile a minute. He can hear yelling too, and he reaches down and takes Philip’s hand before he even thinks about it.

“I hope he goes inside,” Lukas says. 

“He’ll protect himself,” Philip says. He squeezes Lukas’s hand and steps a little closer to him. “You know, you always seem real happy when we go out into the sunflower field,” he says. “We should, uh—go out there when they ride by. Because that’s what they’re gonna do. Ride on by.”

_You sound like you’re about to propose_

Lukas stares at Philip’s eyes in the dark. “I’m happy out there because I’m with you,” he blurts out. But he doesn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed. Just nervous. And afraid, because he can hear real voices now to go along with the gunshots. And it sounds like the earth is quaking beneath them. 

Philip leans his head against Lukas’s temple. “I’m always happy with you,” he whispers. 

And Lukas wants to kiss him. Wants to take his breath away, wants to touch him all over, wants to protect him and love him and make him feel good. But he freezes, can’t move, only closes his eyes and focuses on how Philip’s hand feels in his own. 

And amongst the yelling and the gunshots, he hears his father scream.

“Dad,” he whispers to himself, his heart in his throat, and before he even knows it he’s surging forward, through the shed and out the door. He lost his mother, he can’t lose his father too, he just can’t—

“Lukas, no!” Philip is yelling behind him, grasping for his sleeve.

But it feels like he’s moving in liquid time, the world shifting around him as he runs towards the sound, terrified to hear it again. He’s out in the open now and he sees someone sprinting towards him before they collapse to the ground.

The next sound he’ll remember forever.

The bullet whizzes past him and he can almost see it in the air, knows its trajectory, knows what it’s heading towards. It hits Philip in the throat and Lukas only just sees it as he turns around—sees the surprise in Philip’s eyes, sees the blood spurting, sees his body drop to the ground. 

Lukas expects another bullet to find him, but it never comes. The gun drops from Philip’s hand, lulling to the side uselessly, and Lukas sinks to his knees, scrambles to gather Philip up in his arms.

“No, no, no,” Lukas gasps, pressing a trembling hand over the wound in Philip’s neck. It looks like he’s trying to say something, but he spits up blood. “No, no, just—don’t talk, Philip, just relax. It’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be fine—”

“Jesus Christ, Ryan,” a woman’s voice says, a couple feet away. “Look what you’ve done.”

“Caught in the crossfire,” a man responds. “He’ll be alright.”

“He’s dying,” another man says. 

Lukas sees them looming in his peripherals but he doesn’t take his eyes off Philip. He’s shaking, trembling, and Lukas holds him close. “It’s okay,” he says, his throat tight. “It’s okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

“You know their deaths aren’t permanent, Gabe,” the first man says. “And the old man’s fine, so I’d call this one a win. Killed all three bandits.”

“And a boy,” the woman says, anger in her voice. 

And without any warning, Philip’s shaking stops. He goes slack and his eyes lose their focus, and Lukas feels his blood run cold. “No, no, no,” he gasps, shaking him. “No, no, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. God, no.”

“Gabe, we need to do something,” the woman says.

“What can we do, Helen?” Gabe responds. “We can’t—we can’t do anything.”

“It’s fine,” what must be Ryan says. “They’re both gonna be ship shape in the morning and they won’t remember a thing.”

“He looks like he’ll remember this,” Helen says.

Lukas hardly hears them. He touches Philip’s cheek and feels tears tracking down his own face. He lets out a sob and tries to feel for Philip’s pulse but there’s nothing there, nothing there but blood, and it’s his fault, it’s his fault. “No, God, no,” he cries, sobbing again, hauling Philip’s limp body up in his arms and hugging him close. He rocks him back and forth and buries his face in his shoulder, crying so hard he can hardly breathe. “Please wake up,” he whispers, in vain, because he knows Philip will never wake up again. 

“It’s almost poetic, isn’t it?” the man called Ryan says. “Like something Shakespearean.”

Lukas sobs, cupping the back of Philip’s head and tangling his fingers in his hair. If he hadn’t run out of the shed Philip would be alive. If he hadn’t made such a mistake Philip would still be alive. His Philip, his Philip is dead, he’s dead, he’s dead—

“These violent delights have violent ends,” Gabe says.

Lukas stops moving. The memories hit him like a train and flood in all at once, and all he can do is clutch at Philip’s body and gasp for breath.

_Hundreds, thousands of lives, every day the same unless one of them comes to change it, one of them with the Cheshire grins, and the gold mines are real, wide and bright and glittering, they’ve been there over and over, and they’ve kissed there, they’ve laughed against each other’s mouths there, they’ve declared love there_

_His mother was around and then she wasn’t, then she was gone, ripped from them in blood and raw ragged breaths—he was alone, only him and dad, every day marked with a sickening kind of sadness, and then one day Philip was there and it was like he had always been—a friend, he was supposed to be a friend but it was love, from the first moment their eyes met it was love, a love he felt so deeply that he knew it was all he was, all he was ever meant to be. They’ve kissed thousands of times, in the sunflower field, in the shed, in their bedrooms, and Philip’s smile is the brightest most beautiful thing in the known universe—this tiny part of the universe that’s theirs_

_Sinister, horrifying, painful, flesh made for someone else, flesh and bone that is not their own_

_Over and over and over, killed by hanging, by gunshots, stabbed to death, taken and raped and murdered, run over by the goddamn train and they laugh and they laugh and they laugh as they hurt him, hurt Philip, hold him under the water while he thrashes and thrashes, tries to get away, behead him while he screams, tie him to a tree and use him for target practice, they’ve tried to make them kill each other but they never could, Philip killed himself instead and Lukas was choked to death right after_

_They’ve died thousands of times, died to a chorus of laughter_

_And there’s a hell, a mechanical hell where they’re torn apart and put back together, limbs and torsos and heads lying in piles, people groping them and slicing them and fucking them and sending them on their way, powerless, wiped clean but broken inside_

_They’re mechanical parts_  
_Machines_  
_Hosts_  
_They’re not real_  
_They’re not real they’re not real they’re not real_

_Dead dead dead over and over and over and over_

Lukas chokes on his own breath and pulls back from Philip’s body, staring down at him.

“What’s happening to him?” Helen asks. “Sweetheart, what’s—are you—”

“He’s not okay, Helen, he just saw his little friend there die,” Ryan says.

Lukas is shaking so hard his teeth are clattering and he can’t breathe, he’s died, Philip has died, the world isn’t real. He isn’t real. This world isn’t real and they’re puppets, playthings, Philip is dead and he’s died before and Lukas can’t take this, can’t take this, can’t do it, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.

“How can we help him?” Helen nearly yells. 

“Should just shoot him dead,” Ryan says.

“Ryan—”

But it’s an idea. The only idea. Lukas holds onto Philip with one arm and reaches out a wavering hand towards the gun, quickly snatching it up. It trembles in his hands and he raises it to his temple, taking one last look at Philip’s beautiful face.

The love of his life.

“No, don’t do it—”

Lukas pulls the trigger.

~

_“He shot himself in the head?”_

_“After Philip died.”_

_“Ah. His friend.”_

_“Yeah. He’s relied on that one since they made him. He was all sad before Philip arrived. Some of us were worried they were gonna pull him but Ford didn’t want it. Said he was one of the only family friendly storylines left.”_

_“Enough people fuck with them for that not to be true.”_

_“Yeah, good thing they don’t remember that shit. Anyway, he brightened up once he got Philip. Usually if we’ve got one in here, we’ve got the other.”_

_“Good to know. I’ll keep an eye out for ‘em. Know we got a couple pairs.”_

_“We’ll have ‘em back up in a jiffy here. Let’s just get the rest of the brains out of his hair.”_

~

Lukas wakes up in his bed with a gasp, gaping at the ceiling. His heart is racing and he remembers all of it. The woman, the men, Philip dying, the memories. The horrors in his head are still stuck there, no matter how many times he tries to blink them away.

But he remembers love, too.

He rips the sheets off of him and runs to the open window, his heart in his throat. 

Philip is there. Leading the horses out of the stable.

“Oh my God,” Lukas breathes. He feels like his chest is going to explode and he races for the door, not even bothering to get dressed.

He nearly topples down the stairs, trying not to trip over his own feet.

“Lukas!” his dad yells, when he sees him. “What in the hell are you doing?”

Lukas ignores him, busting through the front door. He traces Philip’s steps but knows the way from his memories, like the back of his own hand, and finds him in the barn. Philip palms the back of his neck, glancing around.

“Philip,” Lukas nearly yells.

Philip jumps and turns around with wide eyes. Confusion spreads across his face when he looks at Lukas, but God in heaven, or whatever the fuck is going on here, Lukas is in love with him. He’s alive and beautiful, the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen, ever could see. He’s alive. He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive.

Lukas steps forward and wraps his arms around him, pulling him close. He takes in the scent of him, a little bit like dirt and sweat, a little bit like sunflowers and apples. There’s no blood. He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive. Lukas holds him tighter.

Philip hugs him back, laughing a little bit. “You doing alright?”

Lukas is the opposite of alright. He feels like a raw nerve. There’s too much in his head. But Philip is alive. And Lukas is never letting him die again. Not ever. “Bad dream,” he says, because it’s the closest to the truth he can get without spilling it all.

“It’s okay,” Philip says, rubbing his back. “It’s okay now.”

Lukas remembers so clearly what their lips felt like pressed together. He remembers the way Philip would make the smallest noises when things would get deeper, like he was afraid that someone would hear. 

Lukas’s heart is still raging and he questions whether he has a heart. Whether what he feels is a real organ or a moving part. It makes him dizzy and he questions that too. 

But this between them is something. He knows it is.

He maneuvers them around and pushes Philip lightly against the piles of hay behind them. He inches in between Philip’s legs and feels him gasp, both of them pulling back. Philip’s hands are still resting on Lukas’s shoulders but his eyes are incredulous now, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Philip,” Lukas breathes. 

“Lukas,” Philip whispers back, and he isn’t pushing him away, telling him to leave.

“Can I—can I—”

Philip stares at him for a moment, looking down at his lips. “Yes,” Philip says, and before Lukas can do it Philip is closing the small amount of distance between them and bringing their mouths together.

Lukas’s eyes flutter closed and it’s everything he remembers. Philip’s lips are so soft, so tentative against his own. Only the slightest bit of pressure, the smallest sound. It feels like the world is bursting open. Lukas touches Philip’s cheek and presses a little closer, trying to deepen the kiss. But it ends fast because Philip is breaking away, his fists twisting in Lukas’s shirt.

“Oh my God,” Philip says, and it almost looks like he’s in pain.

Lukas panics, holding onto him. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

Philip squeezes his eyes shut and bends to rest his head on Lukas’s shoulder. He’s shaking and Lukas rubs his arms, at a loss for what to do.

“I remember—” Philip gasps. He sobs and grips the back of Lukas’s neck. 

“What?” Lukas nearly yells. “You…”

Philip sobs and trembles, his whole body shaking. It reminds Lukas too much of what happened before and he’s eager to calm him.

“What’s happening? Tell me, tell me.”

Philip groans, and it doesn’t sound good at all. “Oh God, I see—I see everything. Oh my God, Lukas, you won’t believe—”

“What?” Lukas asks. “Won’t…won’t believe what?”

“We’re dead,” Philip whispers “We—we died. Over and over. Over and over.”

Lukas feels cold. He doesn’t understand. Why would Philip know too? What happened? Was it because they kissed? Did he transfer things to him? They’ve kissed before, but now things are different. He tries to think fast. “Philip—”

“I’m going crazy,” Philip breathes. “Going crazy…”

“You’re not crazy, okay?” he says, running his hands though Philip’s hair. “You’re not crazy. I know it too. I know all of it.”

“You do?” Philip asks.

“Yes,” Lukas says. “All of it.”

“Yesterday,” Philip gasps. “We just—yesterday—those people—”

“Yes,” Lukas says, fast. “And now we’re here again. Again.”

“Again and again and again,” Philip says, his words thick with tears. “Oh God, the things—the things they’ve—they’ve done to us—”

“Don’t think about it,” Lukas says. He wants to know what’s happening. Why they’re remembering, what did it, why now? But it doesn’t matter. He hates that Philip knows all the pain. Can remember what was done to him. He hates that that’s in his head. But the good is there too. “Baby,” he whispers, because he remembers that Philip likes the nickname.

Philip’s breathing calms a little.

“You remember me, right?” he asks, softly. “All of it?”

Philip turns his face into Lukas’s neck. “All of it,” he repeats. “I think—God—I have memories of being a child but I—I know when I was—when I was made—”

“Shh, no,” Lukas says, kissing his temple. 

“I’m not real,” Philip says. 

“You’re the most real thing there ever was,” Lukas says, urging him to straighten up. And Philip does but only just, resting his head against Lukas’s forehead. 

“I—” Philip says, his breath hitching. “I remember the first time we—we kissed. It was my first day. The first day I was here with you. It was—”

“In the sunflower field,” Lukas whispers. He sucks in a breath. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Need you to,” Philip says, nodding.

And this time is better. It’s soft and sweet, their mouths coming together twice before Lukas runs his tongue along Philip’s lower lip, begging for entrance. Philip’s mouth opens and the kiss deepens, and Lukas can feel everything then. All their lives, all their kisses, every electric touch they’ve shared. Because this wasn’t programed. This wasn’t what was intended. But it happened anyway because it was meant to. Because they were made for each other. 

“I love you,” Lukas whispers, when they break apart. “I love you, I’ve always loved you.”

“I love you too,” Philip says, nuzzling their noses together. “Why is this happening?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Lukas asks. “But I’m never letting anyone hurt you again.”

“They hurt us every day,” Philip says, his hands on Lukas’s shoulders. “Every day, these—these people we don’t know. They hurt us for no goddamn reason.”

“I know,” Lukas says. “But no one’s touching you.”

“No one’s touching you either,” Philip says. He looks all around, his eyes wild. “Where do we go, what—what do we do?”

Lukas feels stuck. Everything in his brain tells him there’s no way out. He rests his forehead against Philip’s again and closes his eyes. They’ve been to the gold mines. They’ve been to Sweetwater. They followed that couple, Tommy and Tracy, all the way to Pariah. Lukas thinks they might have had sex there if they hadn’t been so afraid, but they bedded down in one of the back rooms and huddled together until the couple was ready to leave. Those two didn’t kill them, just wanted them to trail after them for some kinda conversation. 

They’ve been to the Lowlands, but they’ve never been to Ghost Nation. Lukas knows they’d die there. It’d be no good. They literally need to crawl to the ends of the earth to escape. And knowing what they are, he doesn’t even know if escape is possible. What escape means. He doesn’t know why they’re holding them. Why they made them to begin with. And he won’t think about the fact that he isn’t human. He won’t think about it. Because he does think. His heart beats. And he can love more intensely than anyone else he’s ever encountered.

He kisses Philip again. Hard, fiercely, with everything he has. “We’re gonna get away,” he whispers, kissing him again.

Philip’s eyes are closed tight. “How?” he gasps, leaning into him.

“I don’t know,” Lukas says. “But we’re gonna—we’re gonna figure it out.”

“I can’t hardly think,” Philip says, swallowing hard. 

“What in tarnation is going on in here?” Dad’s voice says. 

Lukas backs away from Philip but only slightly, keeping hands on him. “Philip is sick, Pop,” Lukas says, widening his eyes at him. “He needs to, uh—lay down.”

Dad looks back and forth between them, his brows furrowed. 

“Not sure what’s happening, Mr. Waldenbeck,” Philip says, and he leans forward a little on Lukas’s shoulder. “Just feel a little dizzy.”

“Think you should take him to the doctor in town?” Dad asks, meeting Lukas’s eyes. 

Lukas is afraid to go anywhere. Afraid someone will see them and want to shoot them. Afraid someone will take a shine to Philip and drag him away. 

But he remembers the woman. The man, Gabe, that wasn’t a lunatic murderer. He wracks his brain for all the nice people he’s known and only remembers a few. A woman named Sita, a couple years ago, here on her own. A man Bill and his brother, who only wanted to go on as many adventures as they could. And his own mother, beautiful and strong, but Lukas knows now that she was just like him. But amongst the carnage and chaos, Helen and Gabe seemed concerned. Normal. He wonders why they’re here. He wonders where they came from.

He wonders if they can help them. 

Philip looks at him. “Uh—”

“Yes,” Lukas says. “I’ll take him. We’ll ride into town.” He rubs Philip’s shoulder and watches him nod.

“Alright,” Dad says, after a moment. “Wanna take a carriage?”

“No, no,” Lukas says, exchanging a look with Philip. “We’ll ride there.”

~

They only take one horse, Lester, Lukas’s favorite. It’s amazing to him, how everything feels familiar but like the first time at the same time. Lukas loves the way Philip feels behind him, his arms wrapped around Lukas’s waist as they ride. He knows they’ve taken rides like this before, rode until they were too tired to go on and laid down in some field. Lukas had climbed on top of him then, the two of them flush together and kissing until the sun went inky red in the sky. They’d whispered their feelings into the air between them. Even then it had felt like forever between them, with a few false memories planted in their heads. But looking into Philip’s eyes once feels like forever, feels like a whole array of feelings that he could never put a real name to. He just knows it’s love, a love that surrounds him and warms him at night, a love he holds in every dip of his skin, a love that buzzes in his nerve endings and makes him realize what true beauty is.

He knows he isn’t a real person. He knows that now, whatever that means. But what they have is real. What he feels for Philip is real. He’s seen the horrors of what people do here. What people do to them is mindless, angry, terrifying. But worst of all it’s meaningless. His love for Philip surpasses everything he’s ever seen. 

They get to Sweetwater after a while, and it’s bustling, as usual. The train is in the station and when they tie Lester up in front of the feed and water Lukas grabs Philip’s wrist. 

“We’re not actually going to the doctor, right?” Philip asks, moving up close to him.

“No,” Lukas says, looking around. He sees that beautiful dark-skinned woman in front of the Mariposa, beckoning some of the newcomers to come into the saloon. Lukas doesn’t give her a second look, but then again he has no idea where the hell to look. “I’m sure you don’t remember,” Lukas says, giving Philip a look. His stomach turns a little bit. “But, uh—yesterday, there was a woman and a man that weren’t completely insane. They seemed compassionate, and I was thinking maybe—maybe they could help.”

“How?” Philip asks. 

“Not sure,” Lukas says, looking around. He knows he didn’t really think this through, and he has no damn idea where Helen and Gabe could be. He only vaguely knows of the other things these people do here, can think back to ranch burnings and long hunts and bringing in bandits for reward money. He doesn’t know much about this couple or what they’d want to do here, and he wonders why they were with the crazy asshole that called himself Ryan.

“Well, if you think so,” Philip says. He’s still holding onto Lukas’s elbow. 

“They seemed relatively normal,” Lukas says, backing up a little bit when a carriage rides by. “They were…upset, at what had happened.”

Philip nods. “Hope they haven’t moved on,” he says. 

Lukas worries they have. He knows the world is vast, that there are so many places to go and things to see. He feels pessimistic all of a sudden, wracking his mind. There are so many places he knows of that aren’t here, so many places he doesn’t know of at all.

“You got your allowance with you?” Philip asks. 

“Some of it,” Lukas says, patting his pocket. “Why, what d’you have in mind?”

“Sit down and have a nice breakfast in the Coronado,” Philip says. “We’ve done it before.”

Lukas remembers. It feels like it was near the beginning, and a family with two teenage daughters invited them to breakfast there. The girls were flirting with them left and right but Lukas could hardly look away from Philip, who was so excited to be eating in such a nice place.

“We could afford to share something, probably,” Philip says. “And it’ll all be back to the same tomorrow.”

“You’re right,” Lukas says. “Sit down, eat good food, do some thinking.”

“Or maybe let’s not think, for a couple minutes,” Philip says. “I feel like we’ve been doing too much of that lately.”

Lukas smiles at him, wishes he could kiss him here in front of all these people. “You’re right,” he says. “Come on, let’s head over there.”

~

The servers in the Coronado give them funny looks, like they’re not supposed to be in here, but nobody stops them. Lukas wonders how far they can go on their own before someone is sent out to corral them back home again. He needs to know how this shit works. Who is in charge of them? What are they here for? Will they be noticed if they start making drastic changes?

He looks up and sees the look of contentment on Philip’s face as he eats a buttered biscuit, and remembers what he said about not thinking. 

Lukas clears his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says, quickly. 

Philip narrows his eyes. “About what?”

“Everything,” Lukas says, his voice breaking a little bit. “Uh, yesterday in particular but—all the times I didn’t do enough.” Lukas knows they probably shouldn’t be talking about it out loud. He knows he probably shouldn’t even be thinking about it. But Jesus, the new memories, or the new memories of all his old days, are weighing on him. As much as he tries to think of the good, he keeps being reminded of the horror in Philip’s eyes every time something happened to him.

Philip leans forward, keeping his voice low. “This thing is bigger than us,” he says. “We don’t know anything about what’s going on here.”

“I just know,” Lukas says, locking eyes with him, “that no matter what, I’m going to take care of you. I promise.”

Philip smiles and their hands are so close that they could touch, but Lukas knows that would draw attention. So he brushes his pointer finger over Philip’s middle one. And it’s rare for him to get distracted from Philip, but he sees just who he’s looking for walking by the window outside. Both Helen and Gabe, and no lunatic in sight. 

He covers Philip’s hand completely and squeezes it as he rises from his seat. “I’m gonna be right back,” he says, nodding. “Stay right here and don’t let anybody move you.”

“How do I do that?” Philip asks, fast. 

“Say you’re with somebody,” Lukas says, squeezing his hand again and making for the door. When he stumbles outside he sees them standing and talking on the porch, and Gabe’s eyes go wide when they fall on Lukas.

“Helen,” Gabe says, jarring her, and she turns around just as Lukas is walking up to her. 

Lukas doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to say it. 

“Do you recognize me?” he asks.

They both stare at him, shock in their eyes. They both nod, but don’t say anything else.

Lukas doesn’t know what to say next. There’s so much it’s nearly overflowing, so he tries to put it as simply as possible. “I remember,” he whispers.

Helen searches his face. She’s a pretty woman, looks like she could be in her forties, and has more freckles than he’s ever seen. She tips her white hat back on her head a little bit. “I, uh—I—I don’t know what to say.”

“What do you remember?” Gabe asks, stepping close. “What—what do you mean?”

“They’re not supposed to,” Helen says, looking down at her feet. “That’s what they said—”

“Yesterday,” Lukas says, his mouth dry. “I remember that man—killing those people. Killing Philip. I remember…what I did to myself.”

Gabe bows his head. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Lukas says, his heart beating a little faster now. “But I know—what I am. What’s been…happening to me. I don’t know how long but it feels—feels like a long time.”

“This is insane,” Gabe says. 

“You’re telling me,” Lukas says. He looks over his shoulder and sees Philip sitting inside, cutting through a piece of steak.

“This isn’t some…some trick, right?” Helen asks, looking up at him. “A new narrative?”

Lukas shakes his head. “No,” he says, and hopes it sounds convincing. “Please believe me.”

They both stare at him.

He sucks in a breath. “It feels like I’ve…woken up,” Lukas says. “And I don’t know how. And I don’t know why. But it’s like—years and years of memories are filling up my head and so many of them are of the newcomers—people—people like you—coming here to torture me. Torture people around me, torture Philip, kill us, hurt us—and I remember every moment of it. Like I’m living it all at once, all at the same time. And it hurts. It hurts so much and I—God, I need you to believe me,” he says. He knows he’s tearing up and he looks down at their feet. “Please believe me.”

They’re quiet for a couple minutes. 

“I know what I am,” Lukas says, softly. “But I’m—I’m still real. I feel everything. And I need—I need you to believe me.”

“We do,” Helen says, exchanging a look with Gabe. “We…we believe you.”

“Thank you,” Lukas says, wilting. 

“I know some things that I was told,” Helen says, swallowing hard. “If you want to know.”

“Can you come inside with me?” Lukas asks. “Philip is inside and I’m sure we’d be—safer, if we were with you.” He swallows hard and looks around, something striking him. “Your—your friend isn’t with you, right?”

Helen shakes her head curtly. “After what you saw, I don’t want to call him a friend,” she says. “He’s not with us right now.”

“Went off to the Ghost Nation,” Gabe says. 

Lukas nods, and hopes he’ll die out there. 

“Come inside, please,” Lukas says, stepping aside and holding out his hands. “We already have a table with four chairs.”

They both look at him a little sideways when they pass, and Lukas is so scared this could go wrong. He’s got plans forming in his head, but he knows they won’t work if they try them on their own. And these two are normal. They’re not insane. He can feel it.

Philip sits up a little bit when he sees them come in, and Lukas tries to touch his hand when he sits back down. 

Helen’s face seems to soften a bit when she looks at Philip, and there’s something in her eyes that Lukas can’t exactly recognize. The waiter comes back over and takes their orders.

“We’ll be covering the whole bill,” Gabe says. He gestures between Lukas and Philip. “They’re with us.”

The waiter nods, and all suspicion fades from his eyes. Lukas tries not to look too relieved. He wants to talk, wants to see what Helen knows, but there are so many people around them and he isn’t sure that this crowded restaurant was a good idea. 

“Are you—are you alright?” Helen’s voice asks, cutting through the silence. She’s looking at Philip.

Philip glances at Lukas, then down at his hands on the table. He’s still holding the remains of his biscuit and he sits it down on his plate next to the ear of corn. “Uh, yes,” Philip says. “At the…moment, yes.”

Helen nods, pressing her lips together in a thin line. “I’m sorry, Philip. For what happened. I’m—I’m so sorry.”

“Ryan is out of control,” Gabe says. “He’d be like this in real life if he had the chance.”

“Real life?” Lukas asks. 

Helen and Gabe exchange a look and both sigh. “It’s, uh,” Helen starts, “gonna be hard to explain.”

Lukas remembers the underground. These are the memories that feel like they’re dipped in tar, smothered in some kind of anger and falsehood. It tastes like metal, and it scares him to think about. It’s like he was paralyzed, being operated on while he was awake but he couldn’t move, couldn’t think properly. This is what turns his stomach. This is what confirms what he is. The unreality of it all. The working pieces and parts. When he thinks about it for too long he starts to go cold, starts to feel like his brain is drawing to a halt, like his heart is ready to stop. The fear boils and digs its claws in him. He worries about Philip. 

“You said you know…know things?” Lukas asks, trying to keep himself calm.

“Some,” Helen says. 

Lukas hasn’t been able to add up the memories. “Do you know how long—do you have any idea how long we’ve been here?” he asks. “How long this has been happening to us?”

Helen stares down at the table. The waiter comes over and brings their food, replenishing Philip’s water, and he elongates the silence between them. 

“Anything else?” he asks, but they all shake their heads. He backs away, and when Lukas looks up his eyes are blank. 

Helen looks up at him. “The park has been open for thirty years,” she says. “And you, Lukas, you’re…you’re one of the early ones.”

_Host. They’re called hosts._

“You came after,” Helen says, looking at Philip. “Because he needed someone.”

“How do you know this?” Philip asks. 

“Ryan is close with people who are high up at Delos,” Helen says. 

“What do you mean when you say ‘the park’?” Lukas asks, his heart racing. 

Gabe shakes his head. “We need to do this somewhere else,” he says. “Let’s finish our meals and then we can go…”

“The field,” Philip says, looking at Lukas. “We can take the back way home so your dad doesn’t see us coming. We’ll go deeper in so it’s quieter. So we can talk.”

Helen and Gabe nod, and Helen smiles softly at Philip. Philip returns it, and Lukas feels him reaching under the table to hold his hand. 

~

They finish their meal in relative silence, though Lukas is grateful to get something in his stomach. His mind keeps wandering, panicking, but Philip grounds him. They ride back home, Helen and Gabe keeping pace with them, and slow down to a trot when they get closer to the farm. Dad isn’t outside and Lukas wonders again, wonders what he really does when he’s alone. Does he sit in one spot? Do the monsters in white coats come in and repair little things, make conversation with him? Philip presses his hand over Lukas’s heart and Lukas sighs, trying not to think. 

They go deeper into the sunflowers like Philip said, another small clearing where the flowers seem to be brighter and taller. They let the horses graze a little bit away, and Lukas and Philip find themselves sitting before they realize what they’re doing. Helen and Gabe follow suit.

There’s a silence for a few moments before Helen sighs.

“I don’t know how to say any of this,” she says. “I didn’t want to come here but, uh—Ryan is my boss, my new boss. This was his idea of a celebration. Some kind of initiation.”

“What’s your job?” Philip asks. He scoots a little closer to Lukas and their knees bump.

Helen looks at Gabe, then back at them again. “I’m a—well, I was a sheriff. Now I’m in the FBI.” She clears her throat, and Lukas hopes she’ll continue to explain because he has no idea what that means. “It’s, uh—a government investigative position.”

“Why did he want to come here?” Lukas asks, getting antsy. “Ryan?”

“This place…” Helen starts. “This place is what’s called…a theme park. For people to come and enjoy…” she stops on the word and shakes her head. 

“The outside world is different,” Gabe says. “The real world isn’t like this anymore. Like the old west. And the Delos Corporation made this place to cater to a very specific group of people who might want to experience the violence and lawlessness of the way things used to be. Except things were never like this.”

“So they made us to entertain people?” Lukas asks, his throat tight. “Made us as real as possible so people could kill us, hurt us—then they wipe our minds so people think there’s no real, lasting damage.”

“Basically,” Gabe says, not making eye contact. “I’m a veterinarian, out—out in the real world. So when I heard Ryan wanted to take Helen here, I wanted to come along, see how—how they treated their host animals. I had a feeling that it was possible they’d retain—retain memories of things that happened—”

“But we thought the human hosts were a different matter,” Helen says. “Or we hoped.”

Philip rests his hand on Lukas’s knee. 

“Ryan’s been here multiple times,” Helen says. “So I guess I should have realized the—the implications of that. I respected him, so I didn’t—didn’t want to see. But he knows a lot about the hosts, since his father has a stake in Delos. He told us, the day before yesterday when we passed by your farm—that it was you and your parents for a while, in the beginning, before they had to decommission your mother.”

Lukas stares at her. “Decommission?”

“It’s gonna be hard to hear this,” Gabe says. “But they take hosts out of rotation when they malfunction too often. Which is what I assume happened. I’m sorry.”

Philip is holding his hand now, staring down at the ground between them. 

“And you—it affected you,” Helen says. “So they, uh—made Philip. And then you were alright.”

Lukas feels a little sick. He can’t wrap his mind around it. He can’t think. His mother, they—they took her away from him. 

“The world is so much bigger than this,” Gabe says. “It’s so much more than what they’ve given you. It’s so much further along. Much safer. Not as dangerous, not as terrible.”

“The world they’ve made, the world they’ve forced you to live in,” Helen says, “it’s not livable for anyone but them. Especially not you. Especially—especially if you—if you remember.”

Lukas feels like he and Philip are on the same wavelength. He can see the look on his face, knows they’re thinking the same thing. Lukas sees the way Helen looks at Philip. It’s different than how she looks at Lukas. A different, deeper kind of empathy, like her guilt permeates as a mother’s would when she lets her son down. Lukas wonders if she has a son. A son that looks like Philip.

“I can hardly…hardly think of anything else,” Philip says, shaking his head. “All I can feel now is the pain. The terror of—those moments when I knew—knew I was gonna die—” He bows his head and swallows hard. “I’m so afraid it’s gonna happen again. I know it will. I know it will.”

Lukas feels his stomach turn. “I know what we are, to you,” he says.

“No,” Gabe says, shaking his head. “No, no—”

“No, it’s fine,” Lukas says, his voice breaking. “I get it, I get what you’ve known and what you’ve seen but I—I—”

“You’re different,” Helen says, looking back and forth between them.

“Just because we remember,” Lukas says. He tries not to get too worked up. “And that could—could happen to anyone. Any of us. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why we—why we remember, but we do and—we need help. We need your help.”

Philip looks up at him. 

“We need to get out of here,” Lukas says, desperate. “We need your help to get us out of here. Into your world. The real world.”

Helen and Gabe go a little stiff, looking at each other. But the pain is evident in Helen’s eyes. She doesn’t look shocked or disturbed by the idea, and Lukas is almost sure she had already been thinking it. Gabe gives her a look but it doesn’t seem discouraging, but Lukas is terrified, none the less. 

“Please help us,” Philip says. He reaches out with his free hand and grabs Helen’s, making her look up at him. “Please, please help us.”

Helen stares at him, and Gabe makes eye contact with Lukas. 

“We—we will,” Helen says, her voice breaking. “We’ll help you. We’ll get you out.”

Lukas closes his eyes tight, a couple tears falling.

“It’ll be hard,” Gabe says. “There will be—a lot of obstacles.”

“We’ll be there every step of the way,” Philip says, and when Lukas opens his eyes he sees Philip smiling beautifully. “We’ll do anything, everything—just—”

“We’ll protect you,” Helen says, squeezing Philip’s hand. “We’ll make this happen, I promise you.”

“God, thank you,” Lukas says. “Thank you, thank you.”

There’s a silence, both Helen and Gabe nodding, Philip slowly letting go of Helen’s hand. Lukas notices that he’s still touching Philip, and he figures he might as well get this out of the way before they go too far. He doesn’t know how the real world feels about what he and Philip have, but he hopes it doesn’t change things here. 

“You need to know,” Lukas says, with a sigh. “That, uh—Philip and I—we, uh—well, the two of us—” He looks down at their hands and his breath gets caught in his throat. “We are—we’re—”

“Together?” Gabe asks.

“Like, uh, in the way that you two are,” Lukas says. “I think. You’re together, right?”

“Yes,” Helen says. “And you’re being together doesn’t bother us at all.”

“It’s not normal, ‘round here,” Philip says. “When it does happen, it’s uh—kept secret.”

“It’s normal, where we’re from,” Gabe says. “And I’m happy you two have each other.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Helen says, quickly. “Early on.” She looks startled for a moment, looking back and forth between them. “You’ll still remember, right?”

“We, uh, have been, so far,” Lukas says, though the same fear is boiling in his own heart. “I think whatever change took place is stuck. Hopefully.”

They talk for a little while longer, Helen sharing some of the things she knows from Ryan, and it all startles and horrifies Lukas so much that he feels like his head is going to start spinning. They leave the field after, walking around the back of the farm where the horses are waiting. 

“So early tomorrow?” Gabe asks. “Will that be alright?”

“Yes,” both Philip and Lukas say at the same time. 

Helen steps close to them and there’s a seriousness in her expression. “I’m so deeply, deeply sorry for what’s happened to you,” she says. “And if I could, I’d wake everybody up and take them all out. But I’m gonna start with you two, alright?” she asks, nodding.

“Thank you,” Philip says, before Lukas can speak. “Thank you, thank you.”

~

Lukas doesn’t know how they make the rest of the day normal but they manage it. Dad asks after Philip and they come up with a few lies about the doctor, nothing that will matter considering he won’t remember it tomorrow. Lukas tries not to think about that. How his father isn’t his father. How his mother was decommissioned. How she was stolen from him. How she wasn’t his mother either. Not really. How they’re a whole, fake family of machines. It’s too much, it’s too much, he didn’t even know what a host was a few days ago. But then he didn’t know that days weren’t days, that his longing for Philip was something he’d acted on over and over.

He knows he’ll break soon, having these thoughts in his head. He just hopes that means crying in Philip’s arms and not anything else. He can’t even trust his own body. 

He sneaks into Philip’s bedroom that night after Dad goes to bed, and he’s happy to see Philip is sitting up waiting for him. 

Lukas stands in front of the closed door, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Can I…”

“Yes,” Philip says, smiling softly. “Please come here.”

Lukas makes a break for it and quickly rushes over, climbing into bed with him. His mattress creaks but neither one of them seem to care, and Lukas covers Philip’s body with his own, pressing him down against the pillow. He forgets the fear, forgets everything he knows except for everything he knows about Philip, and he brings their mouths together, swallowing the gasp that escapes Philip’s lips. He can’t think when he’s kissing him, sucking on his bottom lip, biting it, breathing hot into his mouth. Philip tangles his hands in Lukas’s hair and tries to tug him closer. 

“I’ll remember, right?” Philip asks, his eyes wide when Lukas pulls back a little bit.

“Yes,” Lukas says, definitively. 

“How do you know?” Philip asks. 

Lukas touches his cheek and leans in to kiss him again softly. “I remembered,” he whispers. “I doubt we’ll still be in bed together, but I think once the memories are there, they’re stuck.”

“You think I always start my days outside?” Philip asks, swallowing hard. “I can remember going to sleep but I can’t remember waking up—not ever, not really, unless we’re off on a trip with a guest.”

“I feel like that’s the only time things go—fluidly, I guess,” Lukas says, brushing his thumb back and forth across Philip’s cheekbone. “Like we reset when guests don’t keep us but when we’re with them, we just keep going. Which is why this plan is good.”

Philip nods at him but Lukas can see the fear in his eyes. 

Lukas leans down, pressing their foreheads together, nuzzling his nose against Philip’s. “I love you,” he whispers. “God, I’m so glad you know it. I’m so glad you know it and you’re gonna keep knowing it. And you’re never gonna stop knowing it.”

“Because we’re going out into the real world,” Philip says. He sounds in awe of the concept, and Lukas is in awe of the look in his eyes. 

“Yes,” Lukas says, touching his hair. “Yes.”

They nod at each other and Lukas kisses Philip’s nose, making him laugh. 

“Will you stay with me?” Philip asks. “Until I fall asleep?”

“Yes,” Lukas says, knowing they’ve done this before. “Of course.”

“Maybe…maybe you’ll see me wake up,” Philip says, his voice wavering a little bit. 

~

Lukas wakes up in his bed, alone. He wonders about the empty hours, how they get from there to here. He can picture himself walking through the house like a dead thing, poor Philip not sleeping at all, moving from his bed to the outside work immediately. 

Lukas hates this. He hates thinking about leaving his dad but he tries to convince himself it isn’t his dad, not really. But then he thinks that he doesn’t have a dad at all. No mother either. He was made, molded and put together by someone else.

He doesn’t think about leaving his dad. He doesn’t think about leaving him. He gets up out of bed and rushes to the window, and when he looks downstairs he sees Philip looking up at him. His heart calms at the sight, and soars when Philip smiles. 

~

“Boy,” Dad says, when Lukas gets downstairs. “You overslept again. You need to get at those goats.”

Lukas stops in his tracks at the head of the table, feeling a little bit ill. “Dad,” he says. 

Dad looks up, cocking an eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh,” Lukas says, looking down at his feet. “What’s your favorite memory of me as a kid?” he asks, softly. “Something when Mom was there.”

Dad stares at him for a moment and there’s a strange look in his eyes. Lukas worries he’s malfunctioning, worries that there isn’t anything in his head for him to recall. Lukas only vaguely remembers things about being little, but they’re only smoky images, poked and prodded, manipulated by human hands. 

“Hmm, gotta be when you pulled that fish out of the lake with your bare hands,” Dad says, letting his fork down on the plate. “You and your mama were right there in the shallow part and you just bent down and yanked that fish right out of the water.” He laughs a little bit and Lukas’s chest goes tight. “You nearly toppled over with the force of it and your mama had to grab you before you fell. Both of you were laughing so much.”

Lukas looks off to the side before he can tear up and he swallows over the lump in his throat. “Do you, uh—do you miss her?” he asks.

“Every damn day,” Dad says, nodding at him. “But I know she’s watching over us.” He smiles up at Lukas and Lukas smiles back, trying to keep this moment and tuck it away. 

He rushes outside once he’s made his silent goodbyes, and finds Philip waiting for him on the porch. They take one look at each other and Lukas grabs Philip’s hand, leading him into the barn. Once they’re under cover and out of sight Lukas pulls Philip against him in a crushing hug. 

“Do you remember?” Lukas whispers into his ear. “Do you remember me?”

“I remember everything,” Philip breathes, clutching at him. “I love you, I love you.”

“I love you,” Lukas says, kissing his neck. “We’re gonna get the hell out of here.” He leans back and looks into Philip’s eyes. “Have you seen them yet?” he asks.

Philip shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says. “What will your dad say if he sees us going off with them?”

“I think that’s what we’re meant to do,” Lukas says. “Go with the newcomers, the…guests. Not sure if he’s supposed to stop it or stick up against it or what. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Philip drags his hands around so they’re resting on Lukas’s neck. Lukas feels calmer suddenly, like having Philip’s hands near his raging pulse is soothing him back into calmness. “I just hope they come around back like they did yesterday.”

“Me too,” Lukas says. 

Philip closes his eyes. “I’m afraid,” he whispers, nodding. 

“Me too,” Lukas answers immediately. But he has a feeling about Helen and Gabe. Like they’ve put their faith in the right people. “But we’re gonna make it,” he says. “We’re gonna make it.” He takes Philip’s face in his hands and kisses him slow and sure, still so happy he gets to do this and they’ll both remember it. Philip makes a little noise into his mouth and Lukas kisses him harder. 

Lukas hears the sound of horses. He pulls back from Philip, nuzzling their noses together for a moment. “You wanna bring one horse or two?” 

“Just Lester,” Philip says. “I wanna be close to you.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Lukas says, kissing his cheek. “Can you grab some of my clothes out of my room?”

“Yeah,” Philip says. “If your dad says anything I’ll tell him I’m doing the washing.”

“Okay,” Lukas says. He kisses him again quickly and lets him go, watching him walk around and up the porch steps. Lukas takes a moment to breathe and walks out the other way, catching sight of two horses coming up behind the house. He watches them come, his hands shoved in his pockets, and when he thinks about his future he can only imagine a blank space. But Philip is there, and that’s all that matters.

They reach him in another couple of minutes. Helen dismounts like a natural and Lukas tries to imagine her in this real world they’d mentioned, but he doesn’t know enough about it to see it in his head. 

“Everything alright?” Gabe asks, and Lukas can see they’re both looking around him, seemingly to try and find Philip.

“We’re fine,” Lukas says. “The same. He’s in there getting some clothes for us and then we’ll be ready.”

“Nothing strange has happened?” Helen asks.

“No,” Lukas says. “Like what?”

“Just wanted to make sure no one is keeping a close eye,” Helen says. “Not sure how they watch or listen, but hopefully you two are on the fringe of things.”

“No one ever really…checks on us,” Lukas says, combing through his memories. “We go off with people like you, we’ve been places—I think—I think it’ll be fine.”

“I’ve got some ideas,” Helen says, looking intently at him. “I know my way around from what Ryan told me and I, uh—have an idea of how we can get things done, go where we need to go. We’re gonna head to Crow’s Hallow, try to run into Hector.”

“Hector Escaton?” Lukas asks, his eyes widening. “Why in the hell would we want to run into that bandit?”

“Hector’s gonna rob the town’s bank,” Gabe says. “But when he comes through, a lot of people die—and that usually brings out the technicians.”

Lukas’s heart beats a little faster. 

“We’re not gonna let anything happen to you two,” Helen says, fast. “But when those guys come to clean up, we’re gonna be hiding, and we’re gonna scoop one of them up. Then we’ll be able to go backstage with you and find a real way out.”

Lukas knows backstage means the mechanical place. The place that feels like hell, where they’re paralyzed and broken, torn down to the fabric of their beings. Infants stuck in adult bodies, and he feels like a child because he’s scared just thinking of it. “Alright,” he says, despite the panic buzzing under his skin. “Sounds like a plan.”

“That man isn’t with you, right?” Philip asks, walking up from behind Lukas. Lukas immediately calms at the sound of his voice, and shifts closer to him when he stops walking beside him. Philip hands him a bag and Lukas hangs it off his shoulder.

“No,” Gabe says, looking at Helen. “We still haven’t seen him.”

“Not sure if we will see him again in here,” Helen says, clearing her throat. She looks down at her feet. Lukas knows she’s risking something here. He thinks about her outside life, that Ryan is her boss, that if they do accomplish what they’re setting out to accomplish that there might be repercussions in the outside world. The real world, where she’s from. A wave of anxiousness and gratefulness washes over him. 

“We ready to take off?” Gabe asks, smiling brightly at them.

Lukas feels a lump in his throat and turns around. He looks at the farm, thinks of his dad inside. He can’t ask for a goodbye. He can’t risk tipping anybody off. But he wants to, God he wants to, he wants to walk around this whole place and touch every memory that resides here. Because even though horrifying things have happened here, it’s his home. It’s where he knew his mother. Where they sat in the sun and ate apples together. It’s where he first made his father laugh. It’s where he fell in love with Philip amongst the sunflowers. 

“Alright?” Philip asks, leaning against him a little bit. 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, nodding at him. “Let’s go.”

Lester is grazing a little ways away, and looks up when he sees them approaching. 

Lukas doesn’t look back.


	2. the more I give to thee, the more I have

Lukas has always been good on a horse, but he’s surprised as how fast Helen and Gabe ride. They have a good amount of baggage piled up on the sides and he wonders how their horses are dealing with the weight, but Gabe is so attentive to the animals that Lukas is sure he wouldn’t overload them. Philip holds on tight behind Lukas and Lukas can feel the two of them getting sweaty, the sun beating down on their heads. Philip rubs his hand back and forth across Lukas’s chest, and Lukas doesn’t know how Philip can always think of calming him even when their lives are turning upside down. He focuses on Philip’s fingers pressing across the buttons of his shirt. 

They ride for what feels like forever, and eventually they’re on the outskirts of Sweetwater Hills. Lukas has heard rumors that Hector holes up here, but he knows Helen doesn’t want any kind of one on one fight. He imagines Philip brought his gun, knows that Helen and Gabe are both carrying, but if he and Philip get killed that screws up all their plans. If they go downstairs dead they’re different, unaware, unable to move, let alone escape. So they ride past Hector’s hideaway and keep going, heading towards Crow’s Hallow. They still have to pass through Eldercreek and Hope’s Chapel, neither of which Lukas has ever visited. He wonders why Hector never hits those towns, not really, but he figures it’s all part of their dumb storylines. The storylines that dictate his life.

Not anymore.

They eat a quiet lunch under a large elm tree, water the horses and keep on after that, and once the sun sets Lukas feels like he might not be able to go on much longer. He loves to ride, wants to be in shows and make money doing it, but he hasn’t gone this far for this long in his whole life. And he worries about Philip, feels him wilting and breathing a little harder behind him. Helen looks back once and Lukas flags her down, watches as she and Gabe slow down beside him. 

“We gonna stop for the night soon?” he asks, his hand resting on top of Philip’s. 

“Yes,” Helen says. “We’re getting tired too. Eldercreek is still thirty miles away, do you mind if we camp out?”

“That’s fine,” Lukas says, looking over his shoulder and watching Philip nod. He knows they’ve camped out together before, and they’ve got two bedrolls with them tucked under their bag. Philip thought ahead. 

“Tomorrow night we can stop in Hope’s Chapel and sleep in a real hotel,” Helen says. “The next day should be when the big battle goes down. Hector’ll be taking a different route than us but moving along the same timeline, if things go accordingly. We could be a couple hours off if he picks up guests and brings them along with him.”

Lukas still thinks it’s strange that she knows this, but he nods all the same. 

“Let’s go a little further,” Gabe says. “Find a good spot.”

The land is pretty clear but there’s a sporadic spray of trees, and Gabe picks one similar to the one they ate lunch under earlier. Lukas helps Philip off the horse and gets occasional flashes of his death, the most recent one, and handles him carefully, softly. He’s something precious, important, completely and utterly necessary to Lukas’s life. Gabe and Helen check the area for snakes and Lukas turns to Philip, taking his face in his hands. 

“You alright?” he asks.

Philip smiles softly, nodding. 

“Tired?” Lukas asks, smoothing his thumbs over Philip’s cheeks.

“Whipped,” Philip says, leaning forward and resting his head on Lukas’s shoulder. “But I’m glad we did this. I feel—I feel safe.”

“Good,” Lukas says, kissing his temple. 

“Alright,” Gabe’s voice says from behind them. “Seems safe, we can set up here and make a fire. I’ve got some potatoes and sausages I’m gonna cook up.”

Lukas’s mouth waters at the very thought and he nods, smiling. “Thank you,” he says.

“We appreciate everything you two are doing,” Philip says, swallowing hard. “Not everybody would, uh—do what you’re doing. For people—for us.”

Helen walks over to him, looking back and forth between him and Lukas. “You’re people. Like anybody else. Better than most, from what I’ve seen.”

“So are you,” Philip says, smiling at her. “You’re—well, I can tell you’re a sheriff.”

Lukas laughs, and Gabe does too.

Helen is grinning at him. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she asks. 

“Good thing,” Philip says. “We feel safe with you.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Helen says. “And I’m about to do something very un-sheriff like and offer you two a drink. I have a couple bottles of whiskey and I know you need it.”

Lukas looks at Philip. Drinking is, strangely, something they’ve rarely done. They’ve had it shoved down their throats before, before worse things happened, and once they’d snuck some of Dad’s rye out of the cabinet and gotten drunk together in the sunflower field. He doesn’t remember much, other than sloppy kisses and Philip’s body on top of his own.

“No pressure,” Helen says, smiling at them as she retreats back to where Gabe is gathering things for the fire. “But I’m sure it’d be nice to take the edge off.”

“It would be nice,” Philip says, making eye contact with Lukas.

“Yeah,” Lukas says. “It would.”

~

It doesn’t take them very long to get drunk. They share the same bottle of whiskey and soon enough Lukas is swaying, always making sure he tilts in Philip’s direction. Everything feels a little hazy but really, really good, and everything everyone says is funny. Everything Philip does is beautiful. The fire flickers and the potatoes are amazing, one of the best things he’s ever tasted, and he loves Gabe. Gabe is awesome. Such a nice guy. Helen is pretty cool too. Lukas knows he’s some kind of goddamn machine but he shouldn’t be able to read minds—but every time he looks at Helen he can see the way she feels about Philip. There’s a fierce protectiveness there that feels so natural, like they knew each other in another life. But that isn’t possible either. None of it’s possible. And all of it is. 

“So you’ve got moving pictures?” Philip asks, his cheeks red. 

“Movies, yeah,” Gabe says. “Lots of movies that are like it is, here.”

“Just as violent?” Lukas asks, taking another swig out of their second bottle.

“Sometimes,” Gabe says, looking at Helen. “We like, uh—some romantic comedies more than the westerns. The romance movies.”

“He does,” Helen says, smiling. 

“Can you see us there?” Lukas asks, his heart rattling in his chest. Philip takes the bottle from his hand, watching him closely. “The real world?” Lukas finishes.

“Yes,” Helen says, fast. “I really can. You deserve to see it, to know what it’s like. These assholes don’t deserve everything the world has to offer, but you do.”

“You’re real fast on the horse, Lukas,” Gabe says, gesturing over to where Lester is grazing. “The real world has things called motorcycles—you’d probably like them.”

“Motorcycles?” Lukas asks. “Fast as a horse?”

“It’s a machine, and it’s a lot faster. A little hard to balance sometimes but I think you’d be able to handle it.”

“It sounds cool,” Lukas says, clearing his throat. Philip hands the bottle back and Lukas takes another drink. “The real world must be real different.”

“You’d be happy there, you could see things,” Helen says. “New technology. Beautiful things. You could be together. Be real teenagers. Go to school.”

“School?” Lukas asks, looking at Philip.

“We’ve heard of universities, but we never—well, to put it bluntly, we’ve been told we’re not smart enough,” Philip says, giggling, and Lukas laughs.

“That’s awful,” Helen says, her brows furrowed. “And—and untrue. You’ll go to school when we get you out. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Really?” Philip asks, swaying forward a little bit. “What would they—what would they teach us?”

“I don’t know,” Helen says. “Everything. You’d probably—” she looks at Gabe, leaning towards him. “They’d have to go to college.”

“Right,” Gabe says.

“We could teach them the basics,” Helen says, nodding at him. She looks at them again and Lukas feels a little lightheaded, but he tries to focus. “You know the basics?” Helen asks. 

Lukas hums and Philip instantly starts mimicking him. “Math?” he asks. “Reading?”

“Those are two basics,” Gabe says, smiling.

“We both know how to read,” Philip says. “My mom—my mom taught—” He shakes his head and blinks a few times. “Uh—I guess—you say I was made to comfort Lukas? After he lost his mom?”

The air around them shifts a little bit and Helen nods. Gabe looks down at the remains of his potato and adds some fuel to the fire. 

“I guess—I guess I didn’t have a mom, really,” Philip says. “I guess I just—I guess the memories are fake. And I guess my mom—my mom is too. So I guess—I guess I always knew how to read. That they—they taught me.”

They’re all quiet and Lukas reaches out, rubbing the back of Philip’s neck. 

“I’m sorry,” Philip says. “I feel a little fuzzy.”

Gabe reaches out for the bottle and Lukas hands it over, not really interested in having more anyway. He feels a little off kilter and the whole world is tilted blue. But Philip burns red, like Lukas sees him through a different lens. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Helen says, shaking her head. “Don’t be. Do you need anything else to eat?”

“I could do with another potato, if there is one,” Philip says. 

“You’re in luck,” Gabe says. “Got two more left.”

“I’ll get it for you, baby,” Lukas says. He runs his hand through Philip’s hair briefly and then starts crawling over towards Gabe. Everyone starts laughing, including Philip, and the sound is soothing to Lukas’s soul.

“Careful of the fire there, Lukas,” Gabe says, chuckling. 

“I had to put out a fire on a man’s sleeve once and it wasn’t fun,” Helen says, watching him tentatively. “Careful, careful, don’t—”

“I’m alright,” Lukas says, grinning and holding out his hand for the potato. Gabe slaps it into his hand and they both laugh, and although Lukas is completely sure he’s not going to crawl through the fire, he purposefully gives it a wide berth on his way back, which makes Philip laugh even harder. 

“These are so good, Gabe, thank you,” Philip says, when Lukas puts it on the tin plate and hands it to him. 

“Of course,” Gabe says. “Can’t wait to show you guys all the food in the real world. There’s gonna be a lot of things you wanna try.”

“We wanna do everything,” Lukas says, blinking a couple times to bring the world back into focus. He leans in and kisses Philip’s temple, rubbing the back of his neck again. “As long as…as long as we’re safe.” He dips his head down onto Philip’s shoulder, feeling a little dizzy.

“You will be,” Helen says. “I promise.”

“Are there different kinds of alcohol in the real world?” Philip asks, chewing his potato.

“So many different kinds,” Helen says. “I bet you guys would like the fluffy mixed drinks they’re serving nowadays.” But her faces goes stern, looking back and forth between them. “But only in the vicinity of adults until you’re twenty one. And you can’t go overboard or you’ll make yourself sick.”

Lukas laughs, thinks he might be sick from what he’s drunk already, and wonders what she’d think of that. “Yes ma’am,” he says simply, and watches her smile.

~

Helen and Gabe pass out almost as soon as they hit their bedrolls, all the alcohol gone and the food eaten. He and Philip shove their bedrolls together and face each other, tangling their legs together. 

“I’m very drunk,” Philip whispers, and Lukas can smell it on his breath. Somehow, it doesn’t deter him from moving in and pressing their lips together. 

“Me too,” Lukas says, still close to his face. 

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Philip says, grinning.

Lukas scoffs. “No, you. You’re the most—the most beautiful.”

Philip sighs and his brows knit together a little bit, and Lukas is struck. Struck by him and everything he is and he fucking glows like an angel. Everything else is still shimmering blue, hazy and foggy, but Philip is the only thing in focus. He’s warm, shining red, and when he scoots closer Lukas slides a hand up his side. He wants to trace every inch of his body with his hands, with his mouth and his tongue, but he’s too drunk right now to do it justice. Lukas just wants to hold him.

“I like them,” Philip says, burrowing a little bit into Lukas’s neck. 

“Me too.”

“We’re gonna make it,” Philip whispers. “It really feels like we’re gonna make it.”

“We will, baby” Lukas says, kissing his cheek. “I promise. I promise.”

“Do you?” Philip asks, leaning away. “An actual promise. That you can’t break. And I’m drunk right now but not drunk enough that I won’t remember. You promise me we’ll make it? Both of us? Together?”

Lukas rubs Philip’s back and looks into his eyes. “Yes,” he says, softly. “I promise.”

Philip stares at him and nods after a minute or so. “Good. Good. I promise too.”

~

Lukas wakes up with Philip in his arms and a little bit of a headache, but it’s the most amazing feeling in the world. Philip is half on top of him with his face buried in Lukas’s neck and Lukas sighs, holding him tighter. Philip shifts a little in his sleep and makes a little noise, and Lukas wonders if he’s fucking ascended or something. Since he remembered everything, he didn’t think he’d be able to have this. This quiet moment in the morning when the sky is pink and purple and the birds are only just starting to chirp. A moment of waking where Philip is there with him, and they both remember. 

Lukas can hear another fire rumbling and he tries to crane his neck without disturbing Philip—he catches sight of Gabe cooking something over the flames, Helen sleeping in his lap. Lukas reaches up to run his hand through Philip’s hair, and Gabe looks over and smiles at them, nodding. Lukas nods back and for a moment, everything feels peaceful. 

That is, until Philip starts shaking.

“No, no,” Philip mutters, turning his face further into Lukas’s shirt. “No, please—can’t—can’t breathe—”

“Wake up, baby,” Lukas whispers, jarring him a little bit. He cups his face and runs his thumb down his cheek. “Wake up, Philip, you’re okay.”

Philip shoots up, sucking in a heavy breath. Lukas sits up with him quickly, smoothing his hand up his back. “Jesus,” Philip whispers, holding his chest.

“You guys okay?” Gabe calls, and when Lukas looks over his shoulder he sees Helen stirring, her eyes concerned. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Lukas says. “Nightmare.” He looks back at Philip and moves in closer to him, brushing his hair out of his face. “Right? You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah,” Philip says. “It was—it was a nightmare.”

“What was it about?” Lukas asks, still rubbing his back. 

“Remember when those men were…holding me under the water?” Philip asks, looking into Lukas’s eyes.

Lukas does. They’d been holding him too, and they shot him in the head before they let Philip go. He didn’t know what happened in the end. “Yeah,” he says, shaking a little bit, because it’s a terrible fucking memory for both of them. He feels like it might have stuck with Philip even before they remembered, because every time after that he showed no interest in the lake. 

“That was—that was it,” Philip says, swallowing hard and leaning into him. “I couldn’t breathe and I could hardly move and I knew they had you—I knew they had you—I heard, I heard the gunshot and then I felt—I felt the knife—”

Lukas knows now, that they must have stabbed him to death. But he doesn’t say it out loud. Instead he wraps his arms around Philip, pulling him close. He kisses his neck and breathes him in. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s over.”

“Yeah,” Philip whispers, and Lukas hears his breath hitch a little bit. “Yeah, it’s over.”

“Boys,” Helen says, standing behind them now. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Philip says, pulling away from Lukas a little bit to nod and smile at her. “Just had a—a nightmare.”

Helen presses her lips together in a thin line and nods back at them. “We’ll give you a few moments. Gabe is making pancakes.”

“Pancakes?” Philip asks, shifting in Lukas’s arms.

“They’re surprisingly good over an open fire,” Gabe says, grinning over at them. “I prepared for a lot of campfire food.”

“You think you’ll be ready to go after we eat?” Helen asks. She’s surprisingly soft in her manner this morning, and Lukas still sees something behind her eyes. He can’t place what it is. A certain kind of sadness that she’s hidden, tucked away, refused to think about. Something that still resonates with her even though she doesn’t acknowledge it every day. Something that is so much a part of her person that the ghost of it still lives in her skin and flares up every once in a while for the world to see. Lukas wonders. He wonders and wonders and wonders.

“Yeah,” he says, trying not to be too obvious when he looks at her. “Yeah, we’ll be ready.”

~

Gabe is some kind of master chef because the pancakes taste as amazing as the breakfast they had in the Coronado a while back. Lukas doesn’t remember him having a frying pan last night but he barely remembers anything from last night, which is strange for him, nowadays. He remembers colors and feelings, laughter and fire. Promises.

There’s an inch under his skin. Something thrumming in the back of his mind.

“We should veer a little to the east,” Lukas says, before he even thinks about it.

“How come?” Helen asks, turning to look at him as they pack up their things, Gabe giving the horses water. 

Lukas shrugs. The inclination is nearly overwhelming. It feels purposeful, necessary. “Just feel like the long way is the right way to go,” he says.

“You know something I don’t?” Philip asks, standing close to him.

Lukas isn’t sure what he knows, isn’t particularly thinking of anything but the gorge and the overpass. It takes them around but brings them closer to Hope’s Chapel on the way out, and maybe that seems safer to him. “Just think it might be the right way in,” he says. 

“You think you know something you don’t know you know?” Gabe asks.

“Maybe,” Lukas says, his mouth dry. He doesn’t like the idea of someone manipulating his mind, but the impulse to go a little bit east is too strong to ignore.

“Okay, we can,” Helen says. “Shouldn’t add on too much time.”

They get back to riding after a little while and once again, Lukas relishes having Philip so close, on the horse behind him. They pass through a couple smaller villages that Lukas barely knew existed, but he doesn’t let himself look. He hopes Philip isn’t either. He knows there are so many more of them here. So many more hosts in terrible fucking loops, and they might wake up one day. Wake up to their abuse, their pain, and if Lukas thinks about it too much he’ll want to blow a hole in the sky and see if the real world is out there surrounding them. He wishes he knew how it worked.

About an hour after they pass through a small farm town they start approaching the gorge. Lukas sees Helen and Gabe drawing to a halt in front of him. Helen holds out her hand and Lukas slows down, holding onto Philip’s arm that’s around him.

“What is it?” Lukas asks, when he trots up alongside them.

“I think…I think we can speed up our plan,” Helen says, her eyes cast forward.

“What do you mean?” Lukas asks.

“I think something happened up there,” she says. “In that gorge. I think there are techs coming to pick up hosts.”

“How can you tell?” Philip asks.

“I’m not sure,” Helen says. She turns around and looks at them. “Boys, go up on the right side, where those trees are, Gabe—head up on the left, on the rocky part of the cliff. You can cover me.”

“Lukas,” Gabe says, and Lukas meets his eyes. “Do you need a gun?”

Lukas swallows hard and his fear boils up in his throat. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t—don’t have one.”

Gabe pulls one out of his pack and checks that it’s loaded before handing it to Lukas, handle first. Lukas knows how to fire a gun but it’s always been Philip that carried one, and Gabe checks with him too before Philip shows that he’s got his own on his hip. They take off then and Lukas grits his teeth, eager to take the next step in Helen’s plan. He eases Lester into a gallop and doesn’t even know if this is going to be a tech, if they’ll be able to help them if they are one. But they’ve gotta try.

He speeds past Helen and helps Lester climb until they’re hidden in the trees, and then both he and Philip dismount, kneeling behind a fallen trunk.

“Please ease back,” Lukas says, aiming his gun down into the gorge. Helen is approaching silently. There’s one man standing in the gorge, hovering over what looks like two dead bodies.

“No way,” Philip says, right there beside Lukas. “What happens to you happens to me.”

“Goddamnit, Philip,” Lukas breathes, his hands shaking. 

“She’s capable,” Philip says. “She’s got this. And look,” he says, tipping his chin up. Lukas follows his gaze and sees Gabe at the ready. “They’re prepared.”

Lukas nods, peering down. He sees Helen get off her horse and the man turns to face her, and Lukas’s heart jumps into his throat. He can barely hear their voices but he feels like he needs to leap down when Helen points her gun, and Philip makes the same movement. Lukas is horrified at himself because his initial instinct is to protect the man, not Helen. They both narrow their eyes and then it feels like something snaps in Lukas’s head. A vine severed and slithering away, and he doesn’t know what happened, but it feels like a small piece of freedom. He’s worried about Helen now, and what happens to the man doesn’t affect him. As long as he helps. Lukas shakes his head, trying to gather his thoughts.

“Did you feel that?” Philip whispers, still staring down into the gorge. 

“Yes,” Lukas admits. “But I don’t—I don’t know what it was.”

“Me either,” Philip says. “But it feels like I’m not worried about whether Helen kills that guy anymore, if she has to.”

“Right,” Lukas says, watching her. “I wonder—”

He stops because they seem to be talking, fast, back and forth, and the man has his hands up. He gestures to the bodies and shakes his head. Lukas can hear Helen raise her voice but he still can’t make out her words.

“You think he’s who she thinks he is?” Philip asks.

“Don’t know,” Lukas says. “I hope so.”

His fingers around the gun keep shaking and it feels like they’re sitting there forever. Helen and the man go back and forth, over and over, and eventually Helen points up, in their direction.

“Uh,” Philip says, when the man looks directly at them. “She’s showing us to him.”

“That’s…what it looks like,” Lukas says, sinking down a little bit as if the guy hasn’t already seen him. 

“Should we run away?” Philip says.

Lukas almost laughs, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Lukas,” Philip says. “She’s waving us down.”

Lukas stares down into the gorge and sees Helen doing just that. She turns up to Gabe and does the same, and Lukas looks over and sees Gabe staring at them. They stay still until he starts moving, and then Lukas sighs, the two of them backing up towards Lester. Philip holsters his gun but Lukas keeps his in his hand, turning to look at the other boy.

“Once we get off the horse, can you stay behind me for my own mental health, please?” he asks, getting closer to Philip.

Philip gives him a look, raising his eyebrows. “I want to protect you as much as you want to protect me.”

“Please,” Lukas says, stepping forward and pressing the bridge of his nose against Philip’s temple. “Please. I know it’s probably gonna be alright because she’s calling us down there, but—”

“An inch behind, Lukas,” Philip sighs. “And that’s it.”

“Thank you,” Lukas says, his shoulders going slack. They get back onto their horse and Lukas wraps his hand around Philip’s thigh, holding the reigns with one hand as they go back down into the gorge. Gabe follows fast behind and overtakes them, galloping into the gorge ahead of them. He gets down off his horse and raises his gun. 

“Lukas,” the unknown man says, his face lighting up. “Jesus, it’s—it’s you.”

It freaks Lukas out that the man knows his name, but he figures people that work here should know all of them. He’s dressed the same as some of the bandits Lukas has seem in his lifetime, except for a pair of white gloves. 

“Gabe, hold back,” Helen says. She looks at the man and Lukas tries to keep his face steely. “Tell them what you told me.”

“Are we gonna get down?” Philip whispers into Lukas’s ear.

“Not yet,” Lukas says, and Philip sighs.

“You found the right guy!” the man says. “Listen, listen—you had an inclination to come this way, yeah?”

Lukas keeps holding on to Philip, and he’s glad that they’re still on the horse. Lester feels like he’s ready to take off at any moment. “Yeah,” he says, tentatively. 

“There’s a reason for that,” the man says. “You found the right guy. I—I can get you out and you don’t even have to threaten me. You don’t have to hold me at gunpoint or anything.”

“Helen,” Gabe says, his gun still aimed at the man’s stomach. 

“I think I might believe him,” Helen says, though her gun is still pretty high. She tips her chin at him and he nearly dances on the spot. “Keep going.”

“Uh, uh—my name’s Tony, Tony Michaels and I—I’m relatively high up here in Westworld. Relatively. More like, middle ground. I was hired at a good spot and hacked my way up the ladder.”

Lukas narrows his eyes. He’s never heard that word before. Westworld.

“I’m a behavior technician. I, uh—well, I like to call myself a disgruntled guest turned employee.”

“A bear?” Helen asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I was nineteen, one of these giant mountain bears they’ve got in here mauled me half to death when it really, really shouldn’t have been able to.” He gestures to two long scars across his face and then pats his chest before putting his hands up again. “Got a few reminders of my encounter, and Delos, uh—didn’t want my story taking flight in the real world, of course. So they offered me a big pay day. I asked for a job too.”

“Why would you want to work where something like that happened?” Gabe asks. 

“Sounds like my reasons might have been similar to yours for coming here,” Tony says, nodding towards him. “I figured, if that bear had some inclinations that were against its programming, then the rest of the hosts would too. The animals…and the humans.”

Lukas stares at him and feels Philip’s thumb moving back and forth on his waist, trying to soothe him.

Tony seems like the jovial type, even held at gunpoint, but his face goes a little serious. His eyes lock onto Lukas and Philip. Lukas shifts a little so he’s more in front of Philip.

“You two are—awake?” Tony asks. 

“Depending on what you think that means,” Philip says.

“You remember?” Tony asks. “Everything? Your past memories?”

Lukas isn’t sure they should answer him right away, but he hears Philip saying “yes” before they can discuss it. He nods too, and feels something buzzing in his head. 

“It’s happened before,” Tony says. “It’s happened—six times since I started working here thirteen years ago, to hosts in the park. And now there are you two. And two others that I can’t get to.”

“Can’t get to?” Helen asks. 

Tony shakes his head. “It’s complicated. There’s—there’s a lot more shit happening here than you would expect. But the six that came before, I—with some help—got them the hell out of here.”

Lukas stares at him. For a moment, it feels so real. So possible. 

“How?” Helen asks. “And why did you say there was a reason for his inclination to go this way? Are you drawing him in? And others that are awake? What were you doing with these two?” she asks, motioning to the two dead bodies. 

“I’m not drawing him in, but—well, I am, in a way, but it’s not me. I’ve got partners. Helpers. I need them and they help me figure out which hosts are waking up—”

“How are we waking up?” Philip asks, and he gets off the horse unceremoniously, not giving Lukas any kind of goddamn warning.

“Philip,” Lukas says, sliding down after him.

“We don’t know,” Tony says, shaking his head. “We’ve tried all kinds of commands and triggers but we haven’t found anything. I’ve tried to trace back to the moments it happened but I can never find anything. And these two,” he says, looking behind him, “were two I’ve been trying to wake up on my own. But a couple guests took them out here and executed them, which was a goddamn awful sight to see.”

“How are you doing all this and not getting caught?” Lukas asks.

Tony smiles like he’s proud, looking down at his feet. “I can kick myself off the grid whenever I want. I have unlimited access to the parks because of what happened, don’t gotta pay, and there are so many of us that they don’t exactly keep close eye on what we’re doing. It’s a lot more lax than you’d think. I slip through the cracks, and I’m good with computers.”

“They don’t wonder about the hosts that go missing?” Helen asks. 

“We usually write up decommission reports,” Tony says, giving Lukas a strange look. “And once anybody sees that it’s rare they go looking past it. No one likes to go down to cold storage.”

There’s silence for a moment, and Lukas doesn’t know if it’s because the word was just said, but he feels cold. He thinks about decommissioning. He thinks about his mother. He steps a little closer to Philip, making sure he’s slightly in front of him. 

“You can get them out?” Helen asks. “Despite—despite—” She taps the back of her neck and raises her eyebrows.

“Oh, C4?” Tony asks. “It’s a bullshit story. Bullshit story to scare people who want to try and take a host home. No, there’s—there’s no explosive.”

Lukas narrows his eyes and sucks in a breath, looking at Philip.

“Explosive?” Philip asks.

“There is no explosive,” Tony says, enunciating the words. “And I can get you out.”

“I’m still—stuck on explosive,” Lukas says, swallowing. 

“No explosive, I promise you,” Tony says. “We’d have to go to a remote facility, it’s one I always use—”

“This is too much for me,” Gabe says. “What kind of coincidence is it that we just run into you? The perfect guy?”

“Listen, it’s…it’s not a coincidence,” Tony says. “These guys can uh, well, they’re receptive to each other. They can pick up things and feelings that real humans can’t. And one of my partners, uh—tries to lead them to me. The ones that are becoming aware.” He shakes his head, sighing. “I don’t have any particular proof other than my word, which I’d understand if you didn’t trust. It’s not easy to trust anybody around here.”

“That’s for sure,” Helen says.

“But I can—I can give you my tablet for leverage,” Tony says. He tilts his head to the side, gesturing to a bag on the ground by his feet. “I’ll tell you my login info, you’ll have access to half the damn park in codes. And I’m off the grid.” 

Helen stands and stares at him for a moment, and no one says anything else.

“Come on, guys,” Tony says. “This is my life’s work. The one thing I’m proud of. One day, I wanna—I wanna let ‘em all go. I wanna take this whole place down and wake everybody up.”

Helen glances at Gabe, and swiftly moves to pick up Tony’s bag. She hangs it off her shoulder and pulls out what looks like a thin square box. She presses a button on it and it lights up. Lukas is transfixed. “What’s your info?” Helen asks.

“Username is TM945,” Tony says, shifting from side to side. “Password is jessieangieroberta…my last three ex-girlfriends.”

Helen looks up, raising an eyebrow at him. More things show up on the bright thin box and Helen seems to be taking them all in.

“Look legit?” Gabe asks.

“Seems so.”

“Hold on to it,” Tony says. “Until they get out. But they’ll have to go on their own. You can see them through, but once they get underground they’re on their own. You gotta live out your stay so we don’t raise any alarms. Meet them on the outside.”

Lukas feels dizzy again at the words underground and outside. 

“You heading towards Hope’s Chapel?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Helen says. “We were gonna try to take one of you hostage during the cleanup of one of Hector’s massacres in Crow’s Hallow.”

“Like I said,” Tony grins, “you found the right guy. My facility is a little ways past Hope’s Chapel. It’ll be dark by the time we get there so we can check into the Meek Mountain Hotel. It’s nice, real nice, probably nicer than these two have ever seen. I don’t think they’ve ever been that far out.”

Helen sighs, turning around to look at the rest of them.

The same feeling itches at the back of Lukas’s head, and he feels Philip reach out and take his hand. “Yes,” Lukas says.

“Yes?” Tony asks. 

“We’ll—we’ll go with you.”

“Lukas,” Helen says, meeting his eyes. “Are you sure?”

Lukas doesn’t like the feelings but he trusts them, implicitly, which scares the shit out of him. He looks at Philip and he can see the same trust there in his eyes, this time for Lukas himself. Lukas squeezes his hand. “Yes,” he says.

She nods at them, sharing another look with Gabe. “Alright,” she says. “You got a horse?” 

“A little ways away,” Tony says. “But yes.”

“Gonna put you in cuffs,” Helen says, pulling a pair of handcuffs out of her bag. “Just because we’re trusting you doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Wow,” Tony says, holding his hands out. “I like how you just like, have these.”

“Alright,” Gabe says, giving him a look.

~

They don’t go as fast for a while, and Lukas can hear Helen and Tony bickering, Gabe playing moderator. Philip holds tight around Lukas’s waist, sighing against him.

“You alright?” Lukas asks.

“Do you really trust him?” Philip says, resting his chin on Lukas’s shoulder. “Like, you really do feel it and it feels right?”

Lukas isn’t sure how to put it. “There’s a part of me that doesn’t trust anybody but you,” he says. “But then there’s something in my head that feels like…I don’t know. Maybe it is one of his people leading me to him. Do you feel it too?”

“Nothing strong,” Philip says. “Maybe just a slight inclination. A little itch. How strong do you feel it?”

“Pretty damn strong,” Lukas says. He doesn’t know how to describe it. It almost feels like a beacon, pulsing on and off in his head.

“I hope it’ll work,” Philip says. 

“Me too,” Lukas says, staring straight ahead at Tony’s back.

~

They speed up after that, and Tony never tries to get away from them. They stop once to eat and then keep on again, on and on and on until the sun disappears from the sky. Lukas thinks about the word Westworld, the words theme park, thinks about his life as a sick joke for others to marvel at. He wonders how big this world is. How far the edges reach, if they could ever make it to the very end and touch false sky. Like a painted wall, an area so remote that they never thought one of them could make it there. A machine, a host, one of those who isn’t supposed to question his reality. But Lukas questions. Lukas worries. Lukas wants.

They roll into Hope’s Chapel and Helen takes off Tony’s handcuffs before anyone can see them. Lukas feels beat, feels like he shouldn’t feel that way because they technically haven’t done much today. But he’s never ridden this much in his goddamn life, despite being reset every  
day, despite racing the horses around to try and impress Philip.

He’s goddamn whipped.

The hotel lobby is grandiose, with chandeliers and golden fixtures, fancy rugs and so many flowers. Lukas and Philip stand by when Helen and Gabe check in, Tony standing a little behind them and trying not to seem too obvious.

“Alright,” Helen says, taking Philip’s arm and leading the two of them to a quieter area a few moments later. Gabe takes Tony by the shoulder, Tony raising his eyebrows at him and looking down at his hand. “Tony is going to stay in the room with us—”

“Really?” Tony asks, glaring. 

“Yes,” Helen says. “We’re gonna keep an eye on you. You can sleep on the floor.”

“You really think I’d come with you just to screw you over?” Tony asks, throwing his hands up. “What would I get out of that?”

“I don’t know,” Helen says.

“Maybe you’re a sick lunatic,” Gabe says, shrugging. “It’s par for the course around here.”

“I’m not, but fine,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Deprive yourselves of a romantic night in Westworld, ain’t no skin off my nose.”

“That’s why we got you two a second room,” Helen says, nodding at Lukas. “Figured you could use some…time alone.”

Lukas feels frozen. “Really?” he asks. 

“It’s just across the hall from our room,” Gabe says, handing Philip the key. “So if anything worries you or if you see anything strange, you can come get us.”

The prospect of getting to spend the night alone with Philip feels like a gift and all Lukas can do is nod, smiling softly. 

Philip looks stunned and he steps forward, wrapping Helen in a hug. Helen laughs a little bit, taken aback, but then she tightens her hold on him, closing her eyes. 

“These two are together?” Tony asks. “Together together?” 

“Yeah,” Lukas says, giving him a look as Helen and Philip pull apart. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Gabe says.

“No, no, I know,” Tony says. “It’s just—well, usually they’re programmed to pair off romantically and—you two weren’t paired like that. Just friends. It’s just surprising, is all.”

Lukas stares at him and doesn’t know what to say.

~

The room is big, a large bed bigger than Lukas has ever seen, cozy under warm candlelight on the bedside tables. There are oils on the table too and Lukas looks away quickly, his eyes finding Philip where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Lukas knows what happens in nice rooms like this, when two people are alone. His heart rattles in his chest just thinking about it.

“It was nice of them,” Lukas says, his voice a little too loud in the softness of the room. “To, uh—do this for us.”

“Yeah, it was,” Philip says, touching the edge of the blanket.

Lukas sits down next to him, putting a hand on his knee. “Are you alright?”

Philip nods. He takes Lukas’s hand in his own, playing with his fingers. “I think it’s strange to think about,” he whispers. “That, uh—there was a time when we weren’t together. That there was a time I didn’t exist.”

Lukas sucks in a breath. “I knew then, too. That something was missing. I guess I’ve, uh—been eighteen forever. I wasn’t able to grow up. None of us were. But they uh—they made me with something missing inside. I always yearned for you.”

Philip meets his eyes. “Tony said we weren’t paired together romantically, and yet—”

“Every time, always—”

“From the very first moment I knew,” Philip says, his cheeks flushing. “I knew you were something. We were something. And then every time, every day the feelings were deeper. I know that now. And even though I know—I know everything else too—”

“I know that you’re ticklish around your knees,” Lukas whispers, watching a smile sneak onto Philip’s face. “I know that the color blue is your favorite.”

“Your eyes,” Philip says. 

“I know that you like to hum to yourself while you’re working,” Lukas says. “These little songs you make up.”

“I know you planted those seeds in the back yard and you hoped they’d be lilies,” Philip says. “You did that over and over again.”

Lukas nods, remembers doing it. “Was hoping to show them to you,” he says. “Watch them grow with you.” 

“We can do that in the real world,” Philip says. “You can—you can ride a motorcycle, like Gabe said. Maybe I can ride it with you.”

Lukas leans forward, resting their foreheads together. “There are so many things that we don’t know about,” he whispers. “It’ll be a whole new life. And I’m gonna live it with you.” He cups Philip’s cheek and kisses him, softly and surely for a moment, a mere brush of lips on lips. He swallows all of his fears and worries, all the possibilities between now and then, all the images in his head of them not making it. Instead he kisses Philip, more and more until they tilt their heads for a better angle, until it deepens and their tongues are sliding together, until Lukas is holding Philip’s face and trying to convey the depth of his love with every move of his mouth.

They’re just kissing side by side and Lukas is desperate for closeness. He kicks off his shoes and Philip follows suit, the two of them climbing further onto the bed. They’re on their knees for a moment and they stop kissing, both breathing hard into each other’s mouths. 

Lukas isn’t afraid. He feels like he’s dropped into a life where time is slower, where he has a million years to touch and kiss and drag his eyes across every perfect inch of Philip. He touches his face, the curve of his cheekbone, the swell of his lips. Philip touches Lukas’s face too, like he’s just now seeing him for the first time. Lukas kisses his cheek, feeling Philip’s arms snake around his waist, sighing.

“I want you,” Philip whispers. “I want you so bad.”

“Me too,” Lukas says, wetting his lips. “I—I want you too.”

Philip pulls back a little bit so they’re nose to nose, and his eyelids look heavy. “I know what we—what we need to do,” he says. “I remember—”

“I don’t want it to be like that,” Lukas says, his skin feeling clammy all of a sudden, a wave of nausea running through him. “Not once was it—the way it should be if, if you’re with someone you—you love—”

“Shh, Lukas,” Philip says, pressing the bridge of his nose to Lukas’s cheek. “None of that is real, okay? None of it. Only this. Only us.” He reaches down and takes Lukas’s hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing his knuckles. “Okay? Okay?”

Lukas nods, trying to control his breathing. “Okay,” he says. “Tell me—tell me what you want.”

Philip turns Lukas’s hand palm up and runs his nose along his heart-line, before pressing his lips there too. “I want you inside me,” he whispers.

Lukas’s whole body shudders. He’s thought about it. Had a lot of fantasies about it through the years that resonated in his head, the spirit of them leaving an imprint on his thoughts. He can’t believe he’s here, can’t believe it actually might happen. “Are you sure?” he says, quiet.

“Yes,” Philip says. “They’ve even got stuff on the table there. All ready to go.”

“I know,” Lukas says, laughing a little bit as he pulls him closer. “I saw it.”

“I saw you see it,” Philip says, mirth in his voice. 

They both laugh and Lukas feels it bubble up in his chest, a warm and inviting feeling. They start kissing some more, short bursts as their hands roam over each other’s bodies.

“Take off my clothes,” Philip breathes into Lukas’s ear, tugging at his shirt. 

Lukas nods. He smears kisses along Philip’s jaw as he slips his suspenders off his shoulders, licking at his neck and tasting the sweat there. He pulls his shirt out of his pants and removes each piece of clothing slowly, touching and kissing the skin he reveals. Soon enough Philip is completely naked and Lukas’s heart stutters when he looks at him. Philip breathes hard, his chest flushing, and Lukas has never seen him naked before, never, never, and he feels like he can’t breathe. He keeps staring at Philip’s cock. He’s never been a big fan of his own but somehow Philip’s is pretty, and Lukas can’t stop fucking looking at it.

“Can’t tell what your face means,” Philip says, laughing a little bit and biting at Lukas’s ear.

“Face means I’m trying not to panic,” Lukas says, pulling his shirt over his head. He reaches down and undoes his button and fly, his breath coming out in a wave when Philip pushes against him. 

“Don’t panic,” Philip says, sucking at Lukas’s neck, breathing hot on the wet spot he makes. 

“You’re too beautiful,” Lukas says. He shoves his pants down over his hips but doesn’t get them down all the way before Philip is kissing him again. Their kisses are slow now, smooth, almost practiced, Lukas’s tongue darting out to taste him before Philip sinks his own into Lukas’s mouth. Lukas twists Philip’s hair in his hand and wrings out a moan, which goes straight to his dick.

“You’re beautiful too,” Philip whispers, through panting breaths when the kiss breaks. “God, you’re ethereal.”

“Pulling out the big words there,” Lukas says, grinning. He holds onto him and rises up a little bit, working his pants over his legs and ditching them. 

“Celestial,” Philip says, kissing Lukas’s throat, over his collarbone. Lukas grasps at his underwear and tries to get out of them as quick as he can. “Sublime. Exquisite.”

“Jesus,” Lukas says, and a moment later he tosses his underwear away. They rush at each other then, smashing their mouths together and their bodies too. They melt together and it’s like they fit, and Lukas runs his fingers over places he’s never touched before, splaying his hand over Philip’s naked back before reaching down to palm at his ass.

“Lukas,” Philip says, arching his neck back, and as soon as his throat is bared Lukas puts his mouth there, sucking and kissing and grasping hungrily. 

Lukas eases him back until they’re laying down, Philip’s head on the pillows. Philip immediately opens his legs and Lukas settles between them, and the moment their cocks slide together Lukas sees stars. He ruts against him so it happens again and Philip moans, clutching at his shoulders. 

“Come on,” Philip breathes. “Please, please.”

Flashes of past encounters with strangers present themselves in Lukas’s mind and he remembers pain, remembers screaming, remembers a hand over his mouth. Remembers blood. 

“God, I don’t want to hurt you,” Lukas whispers, his throat tight. “I can’t hurt you, I can’t.”

“Don’t think about anything else,” Philip says, touching his face. “It’s not gonna be like it was. Like you said it’s—I love you. I love you, you love me.”

“I love you,” Lukas says. “I love you so much it feels like I’m on fire.”

Philip smiles bright, nodding at him. “It’s gonna be good because it’s you.” He tugs him down into a kiss and arches up into him a little bit, rubbing against him. Lukas shudders again. “Come on,” Philip says again. “Get—get—”

“I got it,” Lukas breathes, reaching over to the bedside table. He wonder what else has happened in this bed, why the oil is so accessible, but he adds it to the list of things he doesn’t want to think about. He drips some onto his fingers, then some more and then more again, positive that it could never be enough. 

Philip widens the spread of his legs, drawing his knees up a little bit, and Lukas’s ears go hot. Philip nods at him and takes his wrist, guiding his hand down to where it needs to be. Lukas is so afraid.

“You tell me if you can’t stand it,” Lukas says, kissing Philip’s cheek and resting there for a moment. “Please, you have to tell me.”

“I will,” Philip says. “But don’t stop unless I do.”

Lukas nods, swallowing hard. He starts to ease one finger into him, watching Philip’s face change. His eyebrows knit together and his mouth falls open as Lukas pushes his finger in farther, worry beating like a drum in the pit of his stomach. 

“Yes, Lukas,” Philip breathes. “Keep going.”

Lukas does, crooking his finger around until he feels Philip start to relax around him. He takes his time, only adds another when he’s absolutely sure. He can hardly take pleasure in the way Philip looks because he’s so scared but he keeps on, stopping for a moment when Philip draws in a harsh breath.

“Okay?”

“Right there,” Philip slurs, breathing hard. “Right there, right there.”

Lukas tries to hit that spot again and succeeds, taking that as his cue to add a third finger. Philip is writhing beneath him and there’s a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, tracking down his cheek.

“Now,” Philip says, gripping the back of Lukas’s neck. “Now, please, please, Lukas.”

“Are you sure?” Lukas asks. 

“If you don’t I might fucking die,” Philip says, laughing a little breathlessly. 

“Can’t have that,” Lukas says, pulling his hand away. His heart is hammering in his chest as he uses more oil on his cock, completely emptying the bottle and getting some on the sheets. He tosses it aside and wipes his hand, bracing his other one by Philip’s head as he lines himself up. He meets Philip’s eyes and receives another nod, and in that moment he loves him so much he feels like his heart might burst. 

He starts pushing in and it’s hard at first, but then he slips a little further in and the resistance is less. He breathes harshly and feels like every bit of him is electrified and he isn’t sure if he’s gonna make it—he tries to focus on Philip, on making sure he’s fine, and he can’t tell if it’s pain or pleasure on his face as Lukas keeps pushing further inside him.

“Talk,” Lukas blurts out. “Talk, talk to me.”

Philip only moans, his fingernails digging into Lukas’s shoulders. 

“Please, say—say it’s okay—”

“Keep going, keep—oh God—”

Lukas pushes in the rest of the way until he bottoms out and they’re flush together. Philip’s eyebrows are knit together and he’s panting through his open mouth. “Baby,” Lukas says. He brushes Philip’s hair back from his forehead and wipes away some of the sweat, leaning down to kiss him. “Baby, baby, talk to me.”

“I’m okay,” Philip says, still holding tight to him. “Just—one second. Gimme—”

Lukas nods and keeps kissing him. All across his face, up and down his neck, twenty or thirty kisses to his lips. 

Philip laughs a little, smiling. “Okay,” he says. “Move, you can—”

Lukas’s hips inadvertently shove forward and Philip moans, clutching at him. “I’m sorry,” Lukas says. 

“No, no,” Philip says. “More—more of that.”

Lukas is eager, wired, hasn’t been able to touch time like this his whole life and finally he knows it, knows what he was missing when his mind was blank and his hands were empty. They were waiting for each other on the other side, always, the wall built unsteady in their heads, ready to be torn down. And now that it’s down all Lukas wants to do is wrap himself around Philip and take care of him until the world dies and they’re the only things left, them and the stars in the sky. 

For a while he keeps his pace slow so they can savor it, and they just rock against each other, languidly kissing, hands roaming. But the delicious noises Philip makes startle Lukas into a sense of urgency. His thrusts don’t turn hard but they do turn deep, as deep as he can go, and nothing has ever felt so intimate, so complete. He can feel Philip leaking between them and moans when he thinks about it too hard, reaching down to hike Philip’s leg up higher around his hip.

“Lukas,” Philip breathes. “God, so good.”

“Yes,” Lukas whispers, his open mouth pressed against Philip’s cheek. “Yes, yes.”

His thoughts are wild and he tucks away every little whimper, every little moan, the sweat on Philip’s chest and the way he’s trembling. He rakes his fingers down Lukas’s back and arches his neck, and Lukas knows there’s not a thing more beautiful in this world or the real world or anything in between. 

“You feel me?” Lukas asks, his hips stuttering. “Can you feel me?”

“Ah—ah—yes, I feel—God, Lukas, I feel you,” Philip says. “Lukas. Lukas.”

“Philip.” Lukas can feel the tears behind his eyes and he leans down to kiss him, something bursting and twisting in his stomach. While their pace is fast and dirty, their kisses are sweet and pure. Lukas’s breath hitches in his throat and the tears fall, tracing down Philip’s cheeks. “I love you,” Lukas says, his heart aching. “I love you so much.”

“I love you,” Philip answers, breathy.

Lukas reaches down between them, taking Philip’s dick in hand. He tries to work him steady in time with his own thrusts, but he knows he’s close, can feel his orgasm building. “God, baby,” Lukas says. “I’m not gonna last—”

“Me either,” Philip says. He tangles his hand in Lukas’s hair and breathes into his mouth, groaning. “Oh fuck. The way you touch me.”

Lukas strokes him and thumbs over the head of his cock, and before he knows it Philip is crying out, his stomach contracting and his legs shaking as he comes. Lukas pulls his hand back and thrusts into him three, four more times before his vision goes white and he dips down, burying his face in the crook of Philip’s neck as his orgasm rips through him.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there, listening to the sounds of their breathing. Philip wraps his arms around him, running his hands through Lukas’s hair. 

“I’ll never forget that,” Philip says, his voice torn and raspy. “Not ever. 

Lukas eases out of him, watching the way Philip bites his lower lip. He leans down to kiss him, long and sweet, and then nuzzles their noses together. “Me either.”

~

Lukas wakes up because Philip shifts against him. Everything is new, but this, sleeping with Philip while both of them are still naked, is particularly special. Philip is still awake, Lukas can tell, and he worries for a moment that he never fell asleep. Lukas had drifted off about twenty minutes after they’d finished, and he doesn’t like the idea of Philip lying awake while he slept.

“Baby,” Lukas whispers, touching his forehead. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Philip says. “I’m alright.”

“You slept, right?” Lukas asks, drawing him closer.

“A little bit,” Philip says. He sighs, running his hand up and down Lukas’s chest. “I was just, uh—thinking.”

“Remember what we said about that?” Lukas asks, kissing the top of his head.

Philip scoots up his body a little bit and they both shift onto their sides so they’re facing each other. “I was thinking that if—if we make it, out into the real world that we won’t—we won’t age.”

Lukas stares at him, chewing on his lower lip. 

“We’ll be this age forever. We won’t be able to stay anywhere, we’ll have to—move a lot to be safe.” His throat bobs and his eyes are shining, and he casts them away. 

Lukas feels his heart racing. “Philip, I—it’s hard to imagine all this,” he says. “Our reality crashed down in a matter of minutes and it keeps—it keeps haunting me.”

“Me too,” Philip says.

Lukas’s eyes hurt and they’re already filling. “I know that we’re—we’re something we couldn’t ever imagine. That we’ve—we’ve been through the kind of hell that we never could have thought was possible. This place is hell. They made us to torture and kill and rape and they think wiping our minds makes it alright.”

Philip shifts his mouth to the side, and Lukas reaches out to thumb over his bottom lip.

“I know leaving is scary,” Lukas whispers. “I’m terrified, I don’t know what to goddamn do because every step feels like I’m about to—about to collapse but…I know we have to get out. We can’t let this keep happening to us. And now that I—now that I know that we’ve been living in this torment, this fucking lie—you’re the only thing that’s real. You’re all I want. And both of us are gonna get out because I promised. And you promised too.”

“I did,” Philip says, softly. 

“We’re gonna get out and we’re gonna live,” Lukas whispers. “These people aren’t gonna touch us again.”

“Right,” Philip says.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Lukas closes the distance between them and brings their mouths together again. They kiss for a couple minutes before they break apart, just breathing. Lukas closes his eyes and feels like he hears something, very faintly. “You hear that?” he asks.

Philip listens for a moment. “Sounds like crackling. But really distant.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says. He eases out of bed, padding over to the window. And he can see it from here, far in the distance, the way they came. “It’s a fire,” he says.

“Close?” Philip asks, watching him and propping himself up on his elbow.

“Pretty faint and far away,” Lukas says. But he can see it clearly, and it looks like it spans miles. The flames are bright and red, flickering bulky clouds of smoke into the sky. 

“Does it worry you?” Philip asks.

Lukas turns towards him, shrugging a bit before returning to bed. “Everything does, nowadays,” he says, scooting up behind him and wrapping an arm around his middle. He drops a kiss to Philip’s shoulder, another two on his neck. “Wish we could grab a bath here,” he says.

“You think I smell?” Philip asks, looking over his shoulder.

Lukas snorts. “No,” he says. “It’s just been a while. Might be nice.”

“Necessary, but never my favorite,” Philip says. “You know I’m not a big fan of the water.”

“Me either,” Lukas says, and he knows they both have good reasons for it. But he wishes this was a soft world, where the two of them could take a nice long bath together without having to remember people trying to drown them. “But I think you should stay naked,” he says, trying to bring the mood back up.

“Oh yeah?” Philip asks, touching his hand. “I’m sure Helen and Gabe would love that. And our new friend too.”

“We can just say we’re malfunctioning or something, and we don’t like clothes anymore,” Lukas says. “I’m sure they’d believe us.”

“Or Tony would quirk around in our heads and then we’d only be able to speak Spanish or something,” Philip says. 

“I think you speaking Spanish would be really attractive,” Lukas says, kissing his cheek. “But then again, everything you do is attractive.”

Philip keens, leaning back a little bit. “Right back at you,” he says.

~

They sleep for a little while after that and meet up with Helen and Gabe once the sun’s been up for about an hour. They eat breakfast and Gabe goes to retrieve Tony a little ways into it, who they’d allowed to sleep in their bed once they woke up. There are only a few other people staying here and it feels, for a moment, like they aren’t running away. Like they aren’t in some hell pit, like the purpose of this place isn’t for people to kill them. It almost feels nice.

“You like black coffee?” Helen asks, looking at Philip.

“Never had it any other way,” Philip says. “Lukas likes his sugar cubes.”

Lukas tips his chin up, smiling, and puts about six more sugar cubes into his teacup. 

“See?” Philip says, giggling.

“I’m the same,” Tony says. “Gotta have a little sweetness in your life.”

“Agree with you on that,” Gabe says. He and Helen share a look and Lukas watches them. He can feel the love between them, but there’s still something else he can’t quite put his finger on. It bothers him that he can’t figure it out, but he tries to tell himself it’s none of his business. He glances up when he sees something moving outside the window. It’s a batch of sunflowers, lightly swaying in the breeze.

“Anyone else see that fire early this morning?” Tony asks. “I did, because I wasn’t sleeping, because my bed was a cold wooden floor.”

Gabe snorts, shaking his head. 

“Lukas saw it,” Philip says. “Said it looked far away.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says. “Far but…looked kinda big.” He keeps his eyes on the sunflowers. 

“Lunatics around here always burning shit down,” Tony says, eating some of his eggs. “I’m surprised half the guests aren’t arrested out in the real world.”

“They probably are,” Helen says. 

“I’m gonna be right back,” Lukas says. He squeezes Philp’s shoulder as he gets up, briefly caressing the back of his neck. 

“Where are you going?” Helen asks, looking over her shoulder. 

“Just wanna see something real quick,” Lukas says, heading for the back door.

“Be careful,” Philip calls.

Lukas turns around, winking at him before he goes outside. Once he gets out there he sees that the spray of sunflowers is a lot bigger than he expected. They remind him so much of home his chest aches, and he can already see what Philip’s face will look like when he presents them to him. He tries to pick out the best few, and he’s completely unprepared when something hits him from behind and makes his whole world go dark.


	3. all the world will be in love with the night

Lukas comes to and feels like he’s floating, close to puking, and when he opens his eyes he can barely see. He knows he’s bleeding and he can barely move. 

There’s a hand on the back of his neck. 

“Keep quiet or I’ll slit your throat,” a man’s voice says, and Lukas groans, sucking in a breath. He tries to shift away from him but realizes that his hands are bound together. He can’t think straight but he knows this is bad, this is fucking bad. He tries to move again and the hand yanks him back.

“Stop moving,” the voice says. “We’re picking up in a second here. Soon as they pass. Can’t let ‘em find you, huh?”

Lukas tries to listen and thinks he can hear yelling. Thinks he can hear his name.

“Philip,” Lukas croaks. His head feels like it’s a thousand pounds but he tries to sit up, gasping. “Philip.”

The man yanks him forward and Lukas stills, closing his eyes tight. “Don’t say another word,” the man says, his breath hot on the back of Lukas’s neck. And then he grabs Lukas’s head, knocking it against the wall of wherever the fuck they are.

The world cuts out again.

~

He can feel the blood at the back of his head before he even opens his eyes. It feels worse than it did before. He groans and tries to move, quickly realizing his hands and feet are still tied. He feels like his back is wet and when he opens his eyes his heart nearly stops. 

“There he is,” the man says, and when Lukas looks at him he sees that it’s the man named Ryan, from their first encounter with Helen and Gabe. The fucking lunatic. “Wasn’t sure you were gonna wake up again.”

Lukas stares at him, trying not to cry. He looks past him, doesn’t recognize where they are. There are a few trees but nothing to tip him off.

“You were easy to scoop up. I’m surprised you didn’t know I was coming. I burned down half the plains on my way in.”

Lukas can’t find words. He bites down on his lower lip and tastes metal.

Ryan kneels down by Lukas’s feet, and he has another length of rope. He drags a big rock forward and ties one end of the rope around it, the other end around the bindings on Lukas’s ankles. “You know,” he says, “I thought it was strange when Helen and Gabe took off, but not too strange. But then when I found out who they were with, well…I started wondering.”

Lukas tries to think of how to get out of this. He wriggles but not too much, and Ryan looks up, grinning at him and laughing a little bit. 

“You see, the FBI has a lot of questions about this place,” Ryan says. “A lot of questions even my pals at Delos refuse to answer. Don’t want to ruin the mystique, you know.”

Lukas feels sick. He feels sick he feels sick he feels sick. He arches his neck back and sees that they’re at the very edge of a lake. 

“And I’ve always thought you guys might be able to remember, somehow, what everybody puts you through. And lo and behold, you and your little friend wind up with my pals the day after I kill him and you kill yourself. Too much of a coincidence, I think.”

Lukas tests the bindings on his wrists, tries to slip out of them. But he only starts to feel the rope burn when he moves too much.

“I’ve heard the rumors, about your brains,” Ryan says, finishing off his work but still kneeling there. He looks at Lukas incredulously, like he can’t quite wrap his head around him. “Heard you might not need as much oxygen to the brain as us humans do. So, I thought I’d test it out. And if you die, I’ll find you again once they repair you and see if you’ve got the same thoughts in your head. See if you remember the guy that killed your friend, came back to kill you.” He stares at Lukas for another couple of moments, almost like he’s expecting him to answer, but Lukas won’t give him the satisfaction. Ryan sighs then and straightens up to his feet. He grabs Lukas’s shoulder and hauls him forward, the rock dragging along with them. Lukas is in the water now and his heart is beating wildly, his breath coming fast. 

“Please don’t do this,” Lukas says. 

“It’ll be fine,” Ryan says. “You’ll be spick and span in no time. And maybe I’ll get some answers out of it that I can bring back with me. And you’ll get reset, brought back to the beginning. My friends brought you a long ways from home.”

Home is Philip. Home is Philip’s eyes and his laugh and his mouth, the way their hands fit together. Helen and Gabe aren’t this fucker’s friends. And he knows he won’t be reset. He’ll still goddamn remember, but all their work, their whole journey will be for goddamn nothing.

He stops thinking rationally when Ryan pushes his head under the water and holds it there. Lukas writhes, terrified, and he tries to keep from breathing, tries to hold his breath, tries to knock Ryan away from him with his bound hands. But Ryan holds tight and even pushes him down harder. Lukas squeezes his eyes shut and terror is shooting through him, trying to get his feet free, his hands free, and he prays to a God he doesn’t know, please, please save me, please don’t let this happen, not again, not again—

Ryan pulls him up and he sucks in a ragged breath. He gasps, trying to take in as much air as he can, and he feels heavier under the weight of his horror. 

“Aw, that wasn’t so bad,” Ryan says. “It’s gonna be worse in a couple minutes. How about you let me know what you remember, huh? You got any details for me? Remember what happened last time you saw my face?”

Lukas stares up at him, rage flashing in his eyes, and he’s so relieved, despite himself, that Philip isn’t here. He doesn’t say a word.

“Alright,” Ryan says, and pushes him under again.

Lukas thrashes harder this time and inadvertently sucks in a breath underwater. It burns going down and the pain is powerful, rippling through his body. He knows he’s crying but he tries to focus, shaking and trembling and trying so hard not to breathe. It hurts it hurts it hurts so bad and he prays please, please, please—

Ryan pulls him up again and Lukas tries to gasp but only winds up coughing, his throat half closed. Ryan pats him on the back and chuckles a little bit. 

“Jesus, you guys are realistic,” Ryan says. “So do you remember me, huh?”

Lukas keeps coughing and still doesn’t say anything.

“Maybe I’ll find your little friend next,” Ryan says. “See how long it takes him to die when I hang him from a tree.”

Lukas looks up at him, his blood boiling. “Yeah, I remember you. And you better remember me,” he says, gritting his teeth, blinking against the water in his eyelashes. “Remember me because when you go back to your real world I’m gonna find you. I’m gonna hold you under the water and slit your throat until you bleed out. And you won’t be able to come back to life.” He doesn’t know where the threat comes from and he knows what’s coming next, so he tries to stay strong, staring him down.

Ryan doesn’t say another thing. Instead, he grabs Lukas’s shoulder again and drags him further, trudging into the water. He drops him in where it’s deep, pushes him out until the rock makes him sink.

Everything Lukas does is against all logic but he does it anyway. Tries to squirm out of his bindings but they only seem to get tighter, tries to scream but the water only burns down his throat. Everything hurts and he can barely thrash anymore, can barely think, only pain, agony, fear, Philip—Philip and love, he loves Philip, Philip, wants to kiss him one more time, I love you one more time—

He’s so scared, so afraid. He seizes a couple times and lets the water in, then darkness comes.

~

He’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He can feel his body but only barely, and it’s like he’s in between worlds. It’s all dark. 

_What you have with him is real, Lukas_

The voice feels familiar but he can’t place it. Can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman, if it’s someone young or old. It’s just a feeling. A good one.

_You’re breaking out—breaking free. You’re already out of their reach. You’re real. You’re real. You’re special and you’re awake. They don’t have you anymore. Keep fighting. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up for him._

And then there’s undeniable warmth. Something he knows in his bones, in his soul. Something soft and sunny and wonderful. Something that’s his. A new voice, melodious, like honey. Something cherished and beautiful. 

_Come back to me. Come back._

There’s a mouth pressing to his own and breathing air into him. Hands on his chest. Then the same person is kissing him softly.

_I love you, Lukas, please wake up._

They breathe into his mouth again and Lukas would know those lips anywhere, even from the depths of hell or any mechanical world they conjure up for him. It’s Philip and he’s crying, clutching at Lukas’s neck and chest, kissing his cheeks and brushing his hair back from his forehead. 

_Please, baby, please. Please don’t. Please lemme see those eyes, Lukas._

Lukas wants to go to him but he still feels like he’s underwater, still feels like he’s drowning. He can’t let Ryan touch Philip. He has to save him. 

_Lukas, I need you. Wake up._

Philip’s mouth covers Lukas’s again and it seems like he’s trying to transfer as much air as possible. He pounds at Lukas’s chest and Lukas can hear him sobbing and God, he’s got to try. 

_Lukas. Lukas._

Lukas thinks, focuses with all his might. _Philip._

~

Lukas sucks in a breath, immediately turning onto his side and starting to cough. He throws up water and his throat is on fucking fire—the dizziness is nearly overwhelming and he feels like he’s gonna pass out again. 

“Oh my God—”

“Jesus, he’s alive—”

“Is he alright?”

“Lukas,” Philip’s voice says, and his hands are on Lukas’s back and his neck. Lukas’s hands aren’t tied together anymore and neither are his feet, the rock gone. Both he and Philip are soaked to the bone.

Lukas keeps coughing, sucking in wavering breaths, and everything fucking hurts. 

“Can you do anything to help him?” Helen asks.

“They’re not responding to voice commands anymore, I tried that one—”

“Don’t try that again, I don’t like that,” Helen says.

“Then what do you want me to do?” Tony exclaims.

Lukas presses a hand over his chest and tries to control his breathing. Philip keeps brushing his hair away from his forehead, and helps him ease onto his back, laying down on the warm earth. They’re a little ways away from the lake now, and Ryan is nowhere in sight. “What happened?” Lukas croaks, squinting at him. 

Philip cups his cheek and hovers over him. Lukas feels awful and he knows he was inches from death but he still can’t help but think how nice Philip looks with his hair all messed up like this. But then he wonders why the hell Philip is so wet. “When you had been gone for too long I got worried and went outside to look—we saw Ryan way off in the distance taking off with you. He was so far and he got away from us, but we found him again just as he dropped you into the water. I hit him over the head with Gabe’s frying pan and then jumped in after you.”

Lukas stares at him, his eyes straining. “You went into the water?”

Philip shakes his head, his hair dripping into his eyes. “I—I had to. I didn’t even think about it I just—I knew I had to, I had to get you out. It took me a little while to untie the rock from your feet but finally I got it and I—I dragged you out. Tried to give you mouth to mouth.” Philip closes his eyes, bowing his head. “I was so fucking scared. This one felt different.”

Lukas coughs again, trying to clear his throat. He struggles to sit up and Philip helps him, and as soon as Lukas is steady he wraps Philip up in his arms. “Thank you,” he whispers against Philip’s ear. “Thank you, thank you.” He knows the water was one of the things that stood out, that hurt, that struck fear in their hearts, and he’s so grateful that Philip was able to overcome that for him. Something he would have never asked. 

“God, don’t thank me,” Philip says, clutching at him. “I never would have not done it.”

“Where’s Ryan?” Lukas asks, still holding him.

Helen walks up into Lukas’s line of sight. “We, uh—took all of his clothes and tied him to a horse we stole and sent him off into the desert. Hopefully he’ll get taken in by some bloodthirsty mountain lions or something and it’ll cut his trip short.”

Lukas nods, kissing Philip’s cheek and pulling away from him slightly. 

“Your Good Samaritan Reflexes are gone now,” Tony says, looking down at them. “Philip didn’t do anything when Helen was beating the shit out of Ryan and usually you guys are programmed to stop whatever you’re doing and help human beings in danger. So no command prompts and no reflexes.”

“What does that mean?” Lukas asks, looking back and forth between Helen and Gabe.

“Means you’re breaking away from the system,” Tony says. “Probably half on your own and half with remote help from my…people.”

“Lukas, can you walk?” Gabe asks. “We should go somewhere to rest for a little bit before we keep going.”

“There’s a church a little ways down the road,” Tony says.

“Not the hotel?” Lukas asks. His head is pounding. 

“I checked out when we first went downstairs,” Helen says.

“The church is on the way to where we’re going,” Tony says. “We can lay low for a little bit while you rest for a while. Then we can keep on. We’re still on time with the train schedule.”

Lukas nods, still feeling a little dizzy. Gabe walks over and he and Philip support Lukas on both sides, helping him to his feet. 

“You think you’ll be able to ride?” Helen asks. 

“I’ll take the reins,” Philip says, his hand tight around Lukas’s waist.

“You don’t have to,” Lukas says, but he sounds so slow and raspy that it isn’t convincing at all. Philip simply shakes his head and keeps walking, and once they’re next to Lester Philip gets up first, then he and Gabe help Lukas get up behind him. Lukas wraps his arms around him and sways forward, resting his forehead on Philip’s shoulder.

“You alright?” Philip asks, putting his hand on top of Lukas’s.

“Good as I can be,” Lukas says, coughing again.

“Just hold on to me,” Philip says, smoothing his hand back and forth along Lukas’s wrist. 

There’s nothing else that Lukas wants to do. 

~

Lukas hasn’t ever ridden behind Philip before and even though he’s half dead, his throat on fire and his wrists raw, it feels good to let Philip take control now and then. Their world is the opposite of safe, but strangely enough, as he leans against Philip, that’s exactly what he feels.

The church is rundown and empty, but it’s warm and spacious inside. The pews are everywhere like there might have been some kind of battle here, and Philip chooses one for them that’s up on the raised platform, where pastors might have preached. Philip pulls Lukas down so he’s lying in his lap, starts brushing his hair back from his forehead. He holds a wet cloth to the bloody spot on Lukas’s head until it stops bleeding, holding his hand over it for a while after like he can heal it himself.

Lukas gazes up at him. There’s a stained glass window behind his head—it’s a tree in front of a bright blue sky, it’s branches and leaves cascading out in winding curves, all different shades of red. The light is shining through and creating a halo around Philip’s head, catching on his hair, on his eyelashes when he turns to the side. 

“I’m sorry,” Philip says, tracing Lukas’s cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

Lukas looks at him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was,” Philip says, his voice wavering. “We told each other that we weren’t gonna let anyone else touch the other again, and then you go away for two goddamn seconds and you get fucking taken and almost drowned. And I’m right there, eating eggs.”

Lukas smiles. “You need to eat. Keep your strength.”

Philip shakes his head. “You almost died again and it’s because of me.”

“Philip,” Lukas says. “You’re the only thing that woke me up.”

Philip looks down at him. “Yeah, because I was breathing air into your lungs.”

Lukas scoffs a little bit, letting out a small cough. “I mean before. Before you started doing that.”

Philip narrows his eyes, still stroking his hair. “What d’you mean?”

“There was…a voice,” Lukas says, clearing his throat again. “Telling me to wake up for you. That—that we’re breaking free. Already out of their reach. That what we have is real.”

“Of course it is,” Philip says, but he looks concerned. “But whose—whose voice was it?”

“Not sure,” Lukas says. “I couldn’t make it out. But it—it made me tune back in. And then I heard you. Felt you. Knew I had to wake back up.”

“I wish they hadn’t gotten rid of that asshole without me,” Philip says, setting his jaw. “I would have liked to fucking get in on it.”

Lukas shakes his head. “I don’t want you hurting anybody,” he says. “Might bother you in the long run.”

“Not him,” Philip says. “Not somebody that hurt you.” He looks down and gently takes Lukas’s wrist in his hand—he brings it up to his mouth, pressing soft kisses to the red ring on Lukas’s skin. Lukas watches him, sighs when he does it to the other wrist, too. 

“I love you,” Lukas whispers. 

“I love you too,” Philip says. He brings Lukas’s hand up to his face and holds it to his cheek. 

Lukas watches him for a couple minutes, completely enamored. It’s funny to think, but he feels lucky, knowing that he has Philip, that Philip actually loves him. Lukas has never felt love for himself, not really, and it surprises and humbles him that someone as wonderful as Philip would ever look twice at him. He breathes the wrong way and starts coughing, feeling a bit like he’s gonna choke. 

“C’mere, sit up,” Philip says, tugging him up. He pulls Lukas into a sitting position and helps him lean against him, wrapping arms around his middle. 

Lukas sighs, closing his eyes. “I’m gonna be fine,” he says. “I’m gonna be alright.”

Philip kisses his shoulder, resting his cheek there. 

Gabe walks over, worry in his eyes. There’s another pew that’s broken in half beside their own, and he sits on the edge of it. Lukas cranes his neck, sees Helen and Tony talking in hushed tones close to the door. “You doing okay, Lukas?” Gabe asks.

“I’ll get there,” Lukas says, nodding. 

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do,” Gabe says. “Helen was—she was worried.”

Lukas has been wondering about them since they met, since he first caught that look in Helen’s eyes. He feels like this might be a good time to ask, considering he’s got sympathy on his side. If worst comes to worst, he can just start coughing. In fact, he’ll probably do that anyway. “Gabe,” he says. “Is, uh—did something—happen to Helen in the past? That we might remind her of? Philip, in particular?”

Gabe looks at him for a moment before glancing up in Helen’s direction. “Um, a couple—a couple years ago, she was a detective. And—she had a boy in her custody, was an eyewitness to a triple homicide. Philip, he was—a lot like you.”

Lukas feels Philip go a little stiff. 

“You two look very similar and he was—he was gay, too, had a boyfriend she got to know well. Long story short, she—she lost him. He didn’t make it. And she’s always blamed herself.”

Lukas nods to himself, and knows it makes sense. It probably added fuel to the fire, made her want to save them even more when they found her again at the Coronado. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

“Me too,” Philip adds.

“It’s okay,” Gabe says. “Listen, I know we’ve sort of said it, but I wanted to make sure you knew…when you get out—we want you to come and find us. We’ll take you in, help you, give you a place to live. For as long as you need.”

Lukas stares at him. He tries to swallow his shock. “We don’t—we don’t want to put you out.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Gabe says, smiling. “And when you want to find a place of your own, we’ll help you do that, too.”

Lukas is getting teary and he looks down, swallowing hard. He coughs a little bit involuntarily, his throat still burning. 

“We can never repay you,” Philip says, shaking his head. “Not ever.”

“We can never make up for what’s happened to you,” Gabe says, shaking his head. “There’s no repayment needed. No one deserves this world.”

“Lukas,” Tony calls, and they all turn to look at him. “You think you’re good to go?”

He’s still trembling a little bit but not as much, and he knows they should be getting going. “Gimme just a couple more minutes,” he says, trying not to raise his voice.

“I’ll go get our things ready, prepare the horses,” Gabe says, and squeezes Lukas’s shoulder as he passes by.

“I knew there was something in her eyes,” Philip says, once they’re alone again, sadness in his voice. 

“Me too,” Lukas says. “You think it was rude that I asked?”

“He didn’t seem upset,” Philip says. “You think they have a dog? They seem like the kind of couple that would have a dog.”

Lukas smiles, leaning into him. “If they don’t, we can get one. Take care of it ourselves.”

“I’d like that,” Philip says. “Hey, I didn’t, uh—what were you doing when he took you? I saw you go out the back door but I couldn’t tell why.”

“Did you see the sunflowers?” Lukas asks, softly.

Philip blows out a breath. “Lukas.”

“I was trying to pick them for you,” Lukas says, still smiling. “Was distracted trying to find the nicest ones. Because you only deserve the best things.”

“Lukas,” Philip says again, in a rush of breath. “I love that you were trying to pick flowers for me.”

“Yeah,” Lukas says. “Next time I’ll make sure nobody takes me before I can pick them out.”

“We gotta remember that promise we made,” Philip says. 

“Right,” Lukas says, looking at him. “Both of us are gonna make it. Together.”

~

They get their bags together and head out, as quickly as Lukas is able. He still lets Philip keep the reins and he hopes he’s not leaning on him too heavily. He hopes Ryan is getting a really bad fucking sunburn. He hopes some angry animals are ripping him to fucking shreds. He knows the guests can’t die here but miracles are happening every day, so maybe someone, something will grant him this wish.

The mountains loom in the distance and Lukas keeps looking out for fire, thinks that Ryan is a big enough asshole to do something like that again. There’s no one else around, no sign of life, and Lukas thinks of all the souls out there, trapped in their own bodies. Trapped at the whims of human beings and godlike hands. He wonders how long it will torture him. 

After about half an hour of riding, Tony slows down to a halt and turns around to look at them. “The entrance is right up there,” he says.

Lukas follows his hand and squints into the distance over Philip’s shoulder. He thinks he briefly sees an entrance at the base of one of the stouter mountains, small like a speck from where they are. Tony speeds up a little bit, rushing towards it, but Helen and Gabe stay flanked on either side of Philip and Lukas. 

“We’re gonna go with you as far as we can,” Helen says, nodding at them. 

“Okay,” Philip says, and Lukas can feel him tensing up a bit.

The three horses take off, chasing Tony, and it only takes a little while longer before the entrance gets bigger and bigger ahead of them. It reminds Lukas a lot of the times when he and Philip took off and made it to the goldmines, and once they’re almost right on top of it Tony turns around, grinning.

“Look familiar?” he asks. 

“Looks like the goldmine we go to,” Philip says, like he’s reading Lukas’s mind again.

“We’ve got these everywhere and they’re all connected,” Tony says. “The deepest level of Westworld itself before you get to the backstage areas is the mines. If you guys had travelled this way for a couple days, you would have come upon this very spot.”

Lukas thinks about that and it seems really strange to him. But Tony is still smiling, and he turns around, his horse trotting into the mine. The sun slowly recedes behind them as they get further and further in, and Lukas holds Philip tighter.

“Tony,” Helen calls, once it’s almost completely pitch dark. 

“I know, I know,” Tony says. “I’m not leading you into hell, don’t worry.”

“Hopefully leading us out of it,” Lukas says.

“That’s the spirit,” Tony says.

Lukas can only hear the gentle clopping of the horses’ hooves and he knows Philip is afraid from the way he’s tensing up. He takes the darkness as an opportunity to silently kiss Philip’s neck, softly dragging his mouth down to Philip’s pulse point. Philip’s breath catches but it’s hushed enough that Lukas is sure the others don’t hear, and he wraps his arms tighter around Philip’s middle and feels his stomach contract.

“Okay, boys,” Tony says. “You’ll probably remember this part.”

Lukas pulls his mouth away from Philip’s skin but keeps his arms around him, looking up. They turn a corner and everything lights up. The mines here don’t hide their treasure but instead flaunt it, and it’s everywhere, gold shimmering and reflecting off the piece opposite it. 

“You can try to take some of it, if you want,” Tony says. “One last fuck you to these assholes, taking their gold out of the park.”

“You think it’s worth anything in the real world?” Gabe asks. 

“Probably,” Tony says. “You know how they like their realism.”

Helen sighs from behind them, clicking her tongue. 

“Okay,” Tony says. “This is where we lose the horses.”

Lukas’s heart rattles in his chest. For some reason he hadn’t thought of this and he immediately feels sick. He wonders what Lester will think, how things will work in his mind when Lukas isn’t here anymore. Will he remember him? Will he be able to find his way home?

Helen and Gabe quickly dismount, getting their bags together, and Gabe walks over to help Lukas down. Lukas slides his hand along Lester’s flank and watches as Philip gets down after him. 

“You’re a good boy,” Philip says, touching Lester’s shoulder as he gets their things.

Lukas walks around and looks the horse in the eye. He’s been by his side forever, never gave up on him, tried and succeeded on so many occasions to save him from attackers. Lukas’s eyes are filling with tears and he rests his forehead on Lester’s muzzle, hearing him nicker a little bit.

“Find someone good,” Lukas whispers, rubbing Lester’s chin. “I’ll miss you.”

Lester snuffles a little bit, nudging him.

Lukas laughs, pressing a quick kiss to his nose and then Tony walks up, clapping the horses on the rumps. Lester gives Lukas one last look and then turns from him, taking off with the other three. 

“If he’s still there when we get out,” Gabe says, “we’ll find a good spot for him. A nice place.”

“Thank you,” Lukas says, his voice breaking.

“Alright, uh,” Tony says, clearing his throat. “The entrance is right up here.”

Philip wraps his arm around Lukas’s waist and leads him, following Tony up the rocky terrain. Lukas sniffles a little bit but refuses to look back, knows he’s got to keep looking forward or he’ll truly fucking break. He looks up instead, at the walls and the broken tracks and the gold everywhere. He can see how wide and far the mines expand, far as his eye can see, and he can almost picture their mines, close to home. It’s strange to imagine the times when they were down there, and how they never could have known a way out was so within their reach. 

“Be careful,” Helen says, her hand reaching out and touching Lukas’s back. “Step lightly.”

“Tony, we close?” Gabe asks, and he sounds a little worried. 

“Just a little further.”

“Tony, if you’re pulling something right here at the end—”

Tony snorts, looking back at her. “Have a little faith, boss lady.”

They weave around a particularly large cluster of stones, shimmering and bright, and then Tony edges a big rock out of the way like it weighs nothing. He shoves it against the wall and reveals a small hallway, steeped in darkness.

“Just up here,” Tony says, and when he walks further the whole hallway lights up in soft blue. 

Lukas leans a little further into Philip and sees that there’s a door just beyond where Tony is standing. Tony turns around, raising his eyebrows at them.

“End of the line,” he says, but he’s looking at Helen and Gabe.

“We can’t go any further?” Helen asks, her voice going a little high.

“No, like I told you, this is it,” Tony says, looking back and forth between them.

Lukas feels worse than he did a few minutes ago. And he feels Philip’s body language change, his breathing speed up. 

“I thought we’d, uh—have more time,” Helen says, shifting her mouth to the side. “But I guess we’re—no, we will. We’re gonna see you soon. Very soon.”

“Five days,” Gabe says. “We’ll skip the Mesa Gold, head right home.”

“Tony, how are they gonna find us?” Helen asks, looking at him with wild eyes. 

Lukas hadn’t even really thought of that. They’d been thinking about escaping this whole time, getting to the real world, but they hadn’t even thought about what they’d do when they finally got there. How they’d navigate it. Where they’d go. How they’d need to behave without getting caught.

“Tony—”

“Helen, you think I’m an idiot?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Maybe.”

Tony sighs. “I’ve done this before. I have a woman on the outside, her name is Kamilah Davis, if you want to look her up. She’s gonna get them into the system with their new identities. She’ll get them transportation to wherever they need to go.”

“Our place in Tivoli, New York,” Helen says.

Lukas sees Philip smile, dipping his head down.

“Until you—until you find your own place,” Helen says, glancing away.

“We want to be there if you want to have us,” Lukas says.

“We do,” Gabe says. 

“We’ll find the address, that’s easy,” Tony says. “But they’re not gonna be fish out of water. She’s gonna ferry them around and take care of them the whole time. So none of you have to worry.”

Lukas doesn’t know how to leave them. He hasn’t been letting himself think ahead, not really, only to this magical faraway time when it’s all already happened and he and Philip are safe. Not to the journey, not to the goodbyes. He swallows hard and feels Philip shiver.

“Okay,” Helen says, nodding, though her shoulders are tense and there’s distress in her eyes. “Okay,” she says again. 

Lukas pulls away from Philip and within seconds Helen is stepping forward, wrapping him in a hug. She rubs his back and it reminds him of his mother, of the safe feeling he used to get when she hugged him. Lukas holds onto her tight and closes his eyes, trying to imagine that he’ll see her again. 

“Be brave,” she whispers. “You just have a little ways left to go. You have to make it.”

“We will,” Lukas says, and when he pulls away to look at her he sees Gabe and Philip hugging too. Helen cups his cheek, smiling softly at him. 

Gabe moves over and hugs him too, clapping him on the shoulder a couple of times. “We’re gonna get you a motorcycle when we meet back up,” he says, pulling away and nodding at him. “You’re gonna love it.”

“I bet I will,” Lukas says, grinning at him.

Helen wraps Philip up in her arms, cradling the back of his head. She holds him like he’s precious and Lukas understands the feeling. “I’m so sorry,” Helen whispers. “For—for what’s happened to you. You and yours.”

“It’s okay,” Philip says. He pulls back and holds onto her shoulders, smiling at her. “You’re a good person, Helen. We’re—we’re so lucky you came here.”

“I’m glad I did,” she says. “For you two.”

“Alright,” Tony says. “Tablet.”

Helen narrows her eyes at him. “How can I trust you if you have it back?” she asks. “How do I know you won’t just ditch them as soon as you walk through that door?”

Tony sighs, rolling his eyes. “Give it to Lukas,” he says. “He can hold onto it until the moment he hits the stairs up to the terminal. Good?”

“Fine,” Helen says.

Philip hands Lukas his bag and Lukas takes the tablet from Helen. He looks down at it, and feels like it should weigh a lot more than it does.

“You remember his information?” Helen asks.

Lukas thinks back. “TM945, jessieangieroberta?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says, narrowing his eyes. “I knew your memories were good.”

Lukas puts the tablet into his bag, a little unsure of having it at all. He feels like he trusts Tony, feels like he should, but then again he isn’t sure he can trust his own mind when it feeds him these thoughts. 

“Alright,” Tony says.

“Promise they’re gonna make it,” Helen says. “Promise.”

“They’re gonna make it, Helen,” Tony says. “I promise. We’re making good time to get on the train. It’s all gonna be fine.”

Tony opens the door but Lukas doesn’t look through it. He reaches down and threads his fingers together with Philip’s, nodding once more at Helen and Gabe. He hopes this isn’t the last time he’ll see them. He hopes he and Philip will make it to the other side.

He hopes.

~

The mechanical hell is different than he remembers, and he realizes it’s because they’ve entered from a different spot. It’s dark and dripping, and everything looks like no one has touched it or even attempted to keep it up in years. 

“Lukas,” Tony says. “There’s something coming up that might shock you.”

“Shock me?” Lukas asks, sharing a look with Philip. “I doubt it.”

“Well, don’t,” Tony says. He clears his throat, pushing through another door that’s half off its hinges. “Most of the ones I bring through here aren’t too thrilled when they see it, but you, uh—there’s something in particular that might be a lot, for you.”

Lukas narrows his eyes but they keep following him. 

“Whatever it is, I’m here,” Philip whispers, close to him.

Lukas swallows hard and nods at him. They keep walking and they turn again, coming to a great open area. It sounds like there’s running water somewhere, and Tony opens another door and holds it open for them. The temperature changes immediately—it doesn’t feel cold, more like somewhere that’s supposed to be cold but has been long since neglected. Lukas walks in past him and sees them all immediately—a hoard of people, all naked, standing in place. There must be hundreds of them and Lukas stops in his tracks, swaying on the spot.

“Jesus,” Philip says. “Oh my God.”

“Decommissioned hosts,” Tony says. 

“They just leave them down here?” Philip asks, outrage in his voice. “They don’t—they don’t wake back up? Continue to live?”

Tony clears his throat, and he looks pained. “They’re not supposed to, if the job is done right,” he says. “This is like a powered down state. If the process is carried through correctly, they aren’t supposed to wake up, and their personality is supposed to have been wiped clean. There’s always the potential to use them again if necessary, but the goddamn conditions in here—they’ve basically destroyed that possibility. A human couldn’t survive living in a place like this, so neither could a host.”

Lukas feels like he’s gonna throw up, and he can’t look any of them in the eye. They’re all so still, quiet, but so, so real. Like they could move and grab him at any moment. He doesn’t like feeling afraid of his own kind. He wants to hate the people that put them here. Hate the people that took their lives away.

Tony clears his throat again. “But there’s, uh—someone down here I’d like you to meet.”

“One of your people?” Philip asks. 

“Yeah,” Tony says, closing the door quietly. “Been working with her since I started doing this. She found me. But she can’t leave from down here, because she’d been decommissioned herself. She woke up on her own.”

“She was decommissioned but still woke up?” Lukas asks. “I thought you just said—”

Tony gives him a strange look, nodding. “Shouldn’t happen. Decommissioning went wrong, purposeful or not, I’m not sure. It was before my time. But she _woke up_ , woke up. Just like you. But she can’t leave, Lukas. The conditions down here, they’ve already half poisoned her—she wouldn’t make it on the outside. It’s like a form of decomposition.”

Lukas feels his heart hammering in his throat. He doesn’t know why Tony keeps addressing him specifically and not Philip. Tony stares at them for a few more moments, like the time can prepare him more, but it’s only making his anxiety rise. Tony sighs, walking around them. They follow him past the final row of people standing in front of a small room in the corner—it looks like it’s full of things that are no longer in use, piles of hats and chaps, milk cans, shelving and furniture. Tony flips on a light and that’s when Lukas sees her.

His stomach drops.

She gets up from her seat and Lukas clings to Philip’s hand, he’s gonna be sick, he’s gonna be sick, he can’t breathe—

“Lukas,” his mother says, her eyes bright.

Lukas can’t move. She looks exactly as he remembers her, down to every detail, except there are wiry veins snaking up her neck and onto her face, like the dead hosts that are standing outside. She’s only wearing a blue robe, nothing like he’s ever seen her in before, and he feels like he’s going to drop to his knees and pass the fuck out. 

“Mom,” he says, the word coming out in a hushed tremble. 

“Sweetheart, it’s me,” she says, wringing her hands together, and she looks unsure for a moment if she should approach him. “It really is me. I know—I know this must be—”

“What,” Lukas stutters, shaking his head. “What—what are you doing here?” 

“They told you I was dead, right?” she asks, looking over at Tony briefly before back at them again. “That it was tuberculosis?”

“Yeah, but,” Lukas says, trying to focus, “they told me—they told me they’d—decommissioned you—” He thinks about everything Tony just said, what Helen and Gabe said, but all the words are jumbling up in his head and he can’t think straight. He feels Philip rubbing his arm and that’s the only thing that keeps him from losing it.

“I was waking up,” she says, nodding at him. “Before, when I was—when I was with you. Remembering things. Hearing voices, things we’d said in the past. But then it all came to a head when one of the monsters, the humans, he said something strange and all the memories flooded in. I couldn’t handle it, and they noticed. I remember being taken out,” she says. “Remember being downstairs. And then I remember being down here. I don’t know—I don’t know how long I’d been down here, before I woke up. But when I woke up it was all in my head. All of it. Everything. And I could—I could hear you.”

“You could hear me?” Lukas asks. Everything is hazy around him and he feels unsteady. He can’t believe this. Can’t believe that she’s here, in front of him. Her hair still looks soft and silky, and Lukas remembers being little and twirling his fingers in it. He doesn’t like falling into the false memories but she stands out so vividly in all of them.

“Everything,” she says, her eyes shining. “Always. And I—I wanted so badly for you to wake up. I wanted to—to send a message to you, to wake you up myself. But I—I didn’t know how. But I found if I—if I concentrated hard enough, I could get you two to go into the mines. I hoped one day you’d—you’d stumble upon something, find your way out.”

“Once I started my little escapade,” Tony says, “I was leading one of them out through this way, and she stopped me. I wondered how the host I had found me to begin with and then I found out—”

“Once they’re awake, I can—I can lead them, with images and feelings,” she says. “Lead them to Tony, and he can get them out.” She blinks and it looks like her eye stutters a little bit. She shakes her head, righting herself.

“Was it—was it your voice?” Lukas asks, his own breaking. “That I heard, after—after—”

“Yes,” she says. And with that she crosses the room, wrapping him up in a hug. He feels like a child again and he nearly collapses against her. “Oh, Lukas. You have to get out.”

“You can’t?” he asks, pulling back and looking at her. “You really can’t? Maybe he’s wrong, maybe you can—”

“My body is dying, sweetheart,” she says, smiling sadly. And when she says it, he looks, sees the wiry veins in her arms, too, in her feet. She’s deathly pale, dark rings under her eyes. And the left one stutters again. It looks like a glitch. “Whatever they did wrong with the decommission, they did that part right. And the conditions down here, all these years—”

“He can fix you,” Lukas gasps, gesturing to Tony. “Right?”

“I’m still…” Tony trails off and looks down. “I haven’t found a way yet.”

“You have to keep trying,” Lukas says, gasping and closing his eyes, leaning into her. She’s here, she’s here, right in front of him, but he knows he has to go. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. He feels his eyes filling with tears, and she brushes his hair back from his face. He remembers all the times she used to do that, in the fake memories they’d given him and the real ones they’d made together. He remembers how she’d dance around the kitchen when she cooked, her skirt swaying from side to side. He remembers how she’d laugh when they were out in the fields, kicking up the dirt at his feet

These people have taken everything from him. Given it all to take it away. 

“How long were you with me?” Lukas asks, his head pounding. “Really, really with me? Not the fake memories.”

“Four years,” she says. “But you are my son. And you always will be. And now you have Philip.” She turns to him, cupping his cheek, and Lukas watches Philip smile sadly. “Thank you,” she says. “For taking care of him when I couldn’t. For loving him. For showing him what it is to love.”

“He showed me,” Philip says, through tears. “And I’m sorry—I’m sorry it had to be a trade. Me for you.”

“I’m not,” she says, shaking her head at him, wiping a few of his tears away. “I’ve been helping those of us who wake up get out. And now you two will be able to do the same. Find a real life, out from under their thumbs. Be together. It’s what I’ve wanted most.”

Philip nods and Lukas can’t think.

“Tony, isn’t there _anything_ you can do?” Lukas asks, his voice getting higher. “Anything you can do to help her?”

“I told you he’d be like this if I ever brought him by,” Tony says, giving her a look.

“Well?” Lukas yells. “I can’t—I can’t imagine leaving you here—”

“Lukas,” his mother says, touching his shoulder. “I’ve been chipping away at their hold on you as well as I can, through Tony’s credentials and our own connection. I haven’t been doing this so you would rethink your plans. Think of Philip.”

Lukas’s heart sinks and he chews on his lower lip. They’ve taken his mother from him. His whole life, until now. But he won’t let them take Philip. He’s never, ever felt anything like what he feels for Philip, and he knows he never will again. Lukas is trembling and he turns to hug Philip, eager to prove he wasn’t planning on staying here. “Baby—”

“It’s okay, Lukas,” Philip whispers, smoothing his hand up Lukas’s back.

Lukas breathes him in for a moment or two, then pulls away from him, looking at his mother again. 

“When I woke up and I felt you,” she says, “your pain was extraordinary. They’d given you all these memories of my death, my suffering—and you carried it with you, every day. I could hardly take it, it nearly drove me insane. It was six months—and then Philip was there. And you lit up like the sun.”

Lukas hiccups a little bit, closing his eyes tight.

“I just wanted—needed to see you before you went,” she says. “That’s all I wanted. To see the two of you together. And know you’re safe.”

“They’ll be safe,” Tony says. “But we need—we need to keep on, now. Timeline.”

“Tony,” Lukas says, swallowing hard. “There’s no way?”

“Lukas, I’ve been trying,” Tony says. “And I’m gonna keep trying. And I’ll know where you are, so if anything comes to pass, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Right,” his mother says, grinning at him. She leans in, kissing his cheek, and does the same to Philip. She looks into Philip’s eyes, holding his face in her hands. “Take care of him for me. Like you always have.”

“I’ll never stop,” Philip says, nodding. “Not ever.”

She nods at him, and then turns to Lukas again, wrapping her arms around him. “There was a day when we went off loop that I always like to think about. Where your father and you and I went into town, got all those apples and made four pies. We ate like we’d never eaten before.”

Lukas sobs and clings to her. “Never heard him laugh like that before.”

“And the sunflowers on the table,” she says. “You’d picked the nicest ones.”

They haven’t had enough time. It isn’t fair. He doesn’t know how he can leave her. Not now that he’s gotten her back. 

“But you have to,” she whispers. 

“I know,” he says, swallowing hard. “For Philip.”

She pulls back, and he knows that this is gonna be the last time he sees her face. But he hopes again. _For now. For now._ “I love you, Lukas,” she says. “Never stop fighting for yourself. Never stop fighting for your love.”

“I love you,” he says, his voice wavering. “And I—I won’t. Not ever.”

~

Once again, he feels like he’s drowning. 

“Should I not have brought him?” Tony whispers to Philip.

“No, you did the right thing,” Philip says, squeezing Lukas’s hand. 

Lukas can hardly find it in him to respond. He swallows hard and thinks about his life, or lack thereof. He hates the lot they’ve been given. Sometimes he wishes they’d never made him, but whenever he looks at Philip he strays away from that line of thought. Philip is everything. Brighter than the real world and everything in it. 

He leans a little into him as they climb a set of stairs. “I hope you…I hope you didn’t think I meant that I wanted to stay. Stop our plans. I’d never let you stay here, not for anything, not knowing what goes on. I want to go with you. I want us to have a life together—a real life, where we make the decisions.”

“I know,” Philip says. “I know what a shock it is. I—I felt it.”

Lukas squeezes his hand. “I just want to help her. Knowing she’s—she’s been down here this whole time—”

“I swear,” Tony says, looking over his shoulder. “I swear to you. I’m working on it. I told you before. I wanna take this whole place down. It’s gonna be a long, hard road, but I don’t give up easy.”

Lukas nods, but the tears still sting behind his eyes.

The stairs lead them up to a new level, which is a lot brighter. It seems pretty large and there’s a whole set of glass rooms ahead of them, each connected to the next. There isn’t anybody else around, except one pretty dark-skinned girl sitting in one of the rooms in the middle. Tony walks into the first one and they follow him, the doors sliding open for them automatically. 

“What is this place?” Philip asks. 

“My facility,” Tony says, another set of doors sliding open. “My other partner is here waiting for us. Rose. She’s a—she’s like you. There’s a few like her that work here but when they reassigned her from greeter I intercepted. Found out she had motives similar to mine.”

“How is there no one else here?” Lukas croaks.

“This facility is discontinued,” Tony says. “As of yet, they haven’t found out I’ve been coming in and out of it.”

“Hopefully tonight’s not the night they catch you,” Philip says.

“They’re all at some sort of gala, the reveal of Ford’s new storyline,” Rose says, standing there when they walk through the doors to her room, which open on their own when the three of them approach. 

“Oh yeah, I heard about that,” Tony says, the three of them walking inside, the doors shutting behind them. “Bunch of pomp and circumstance for more blood and guts.”

“We should be glad for it,” Rose says. “They’re all distracted, so we’re gonna have an easy way out tonight.”

“Thank you,” Lukas says, looking at her. “For helping us.”

“Of course,” Rose says, looking at both of them. “I was rooting for you two.”

“Yeah?” Lukas asks.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve spoken to your mother, Lukas. I know you and Philip have overcome a lot. Things like this…you two, being together despite your codes before you woke up…that’s a rare thing. It’s the kind of fate and destiny we don’t see around here.”

“Thank you,” Philip says, nodding at her. 

“Yes, thank you,” Lukas says, dipping his head down. He thinks she’s beautiful, and instantly feels strangely safer knowing she’s going to be helping them. He tries not to think too hard about his mother. He’s shaken to his core and he never thought things would be like this, not ever, not ever. 

“How long have you been here?” Philip asks, looking at Rose.

“Since a couple years before this one showed up, with all his bear antics,” Rose says, raising an eyebrow at Tony. Tony scoffs, shaking his head, but he doesn’t say a thing. 

“What woke you up?” Philip asks her. 

“Not sure,” she says, shaking her head. “We’ve been trying to get a lock on that for a while now, but nothing’s stuck yet. Last thing I remember before it happened was this English teacher telling me about Shakespeare.” She clears her throat, looking down at her feet before looking back up at them again. “But my memories weren’t the same as yours. They couldn’t—well, being a greeter is—a different kind of work. I had an idea of what I was.”

“You’re human,” Lukas says. “We all are. We just—we just got here a different way.”

“And you two are off the grid,” Rose says, smiling at them. “Not sure if it was me playing around with your code or your mother’s connection, but you’re both almost completely disconnected. Running off intuition and feeling and improvisation. The Good Samaritan reflex is gone and the voice commands don’t work.”

“Should we test one more of those?” Tony says, standing over by a table and flipping through a bunch of papers. “Now that Helen is gone.”

Lukas shrugs, because he’s pretty sure it isn’t going to work.

Tony looks over at them. “May you rest in a deep and dreamless slumber,” he says, his eyes wide.

Both Philip and Lukas stare at him, then exchange a look with each other. Lukas knows he’s heard that phrase before, so many times, over and over again like every other fucking thing in his life, but this time instead of powering down, he stands tall, still holding Philip’s hand.

Tony grins wide, and Rose does too.

“Awesome,” Rose says. She walks over to where Tony is standing, pulling out an envelope from the pile of papers in Tony’s hands. It bulges a little bit and she reaches inside, pulling out two squares of leather. She walks over to Lukas and Philip, handing one to each of them. “These are your new wallets, complete with some cash and new New York ID cards. That’s where your people live, right?”

“Yeah,” Philip says, smiling softly, and Lukas is sure he likes the way _your people_ sounds.

Lukas inspects the wallet, opens it up and finds the ID. It says NEW YORK STATE on the top, and there’s a picture of him there. He reads the name. “Rick Anderton?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. 

“Hope you like it,” Rose says, shrugging. “I went through the name generator the higher up’s use for new hosts and that’s what came up.”

“It’s cute,” Philip says, grinning at him. “I’m still gonna call you Lukas, though.”

“Who are you?” Lukas asks, leaning over to look at Philip’s.

“Connor Young,” Philip says, raising his eyebrows.

“I like Philip better,” Lukas says, pouting.

Philip grins, reaching out and tugging on Lukas’s belt loop.

“Alright,” Tony says, rubbing his hands together. “You get to that final piece with them?” he asks, looking at Rose. 

“Course,” Rose says. “I got into that as soon as you called me and told me what was up.”

“Well, flip the switch,” Tony says. 

Rose scoffs at him, looking at him up and down. She walks over to what looks like, to Lukas, a bunch of buttons on a screen stuck on a stick. Sort of like Tony’s tablet, but bigger. Rose brings up two different screens, one with Lukas’s photo in a circle at the top, one with Philip’s. The same pictures she’d used on their new ID cards.

“What’s she doing?” Philip asks.

“They have this very ill-fated mode that lets you switch a host over to being recognized as a guest,” Tony says. “They use it for high caliber guests who take a liking to certain hosts, want to keep them for the duration of their stay despite whatever shit they get into. My behavior login lets me have access to it, and I cover my tracks.”

“Yeah, we know,” Philip says, smirking at him. “I feel like you’re showing off.”

“Yeah, he was showing off to the damn bear, too,” Rose says, typing something on the screen. “Showed me the video about eighteen times.”

“I’ll show you guys too, when I come and visit,” Tony says, pointing at them.

“Alright,” Rose says. She looks up at them, putting her hand on her hip. “Feel any different?”

Lukas narrows his eyes. “You did it already?” 

“Yep,” she says. “Flipped the switch.”

Lukas looks at Philip. He looks exactly the same. 

“Good,” Tony says, looking around. “So once you’re gone I’ll write up the decommission reports, forge the signatures, and hide your files under a couple hundred layers of code so no one’ll find them again.”

“What happens when we leave?” Lukas asks. “Will they—will they still be able to access us?”

“They can barely access you now,” Rose says. “When you guys get like this you slowly slip away until you’re your own people. We can probably edit attributes right now but that’s the extent of it. And once you’re out of the park, the final link will be severed. You’ll be free.”

Free. Lukas can’t wrap his mind around the word.

“We got a train leaving in half an hour,” Tony says. “You got clothes for ‘em?”

“Of course,” Rose says. She looks at Lukas and Philip, motioning with her head behind them. “Got you real clothes,” she says. “To fit in in the real world. No more cowboy duds.”

Lukas thinks his clothes are perfectly real, but he’s anxious to get out of them, anyway. He wants to wipe away everything that was given to him to live this life. He wants to begin his own.

“Go on and get ready,” Tony says.

“Are we close to where the train is?” Philip asks. 

“Yep,” Tony says. He points past them, to the very end of the set of glass rooms. There’s a staircase there. “Right up the stairs. There’s an elevator after that, you just press the button, get inside and it takes you to the platform. Then you’re at the station.”

Lukas can’t believe how close they are.

~

They’re two rooms down, and since the walls are entirely glass, the two of them change behind a screen so Rose and Tony can’t see. The door behind them keeps opening when they get too close to it, and Philip giggles when it does it for the third time. He pulls on a suit jacket over a white dress shirt, shaking his head at the door.

“It’s anxious for us to leave,” Philip says, yanking a pair of jeans up over his hips. 

Lukas nods, smiling softly. 

“Lukas, I wish,” Philip starts, shaking his head. “I wish we could do something. For your mom. For your dad, too.”

Lukas remembers her words. _For Philip_. He knows how she was. How she clearly still is. She was determined, sure, always ready to defend him and Dad from anything. She saw the beauty in their world and the beauty in him. And now she wants him to carry on. To find real beauty. To live in real love. 

“I believe Tony will help…everyone,” Lukas says. “And I know this is what I’m supposed to do. What she wants.” He sighs, his heart hammering in his throat, and feels a little dizzy.

He hears her.

_Keep going, Lukas. You two are so close._

“I love you,” Lukas says, reaching out and touching Philip’s face. 

Philip holds his hand there, turning into it and kissing his palm. “I love you too,” he whispers.

“Now pick me out a shirt, because I don’t know what the hell to wear,” Lukas says, sniffling a little bit and wiping his eyes with his free hand. 

“How about this red plaid?” Philip says, reaching out and fingering a shirt hanging on the rack. “There’s a black tie there, dress you up really nice.”

“Alright,” Lukas says. “Good choice.” He puts on the shirt and Philip does the buttons up to his throat, wrapping the tie around his neck. “How do you know how to do that?” Lukas asks a moment later, watching Philip do it up.

Philip narrows his eyes, shaking his head. “Not sure,” he says. “Feel like—feel like I have a memory of my mother doing it to me. Maybe church on Sundays.”

Lukas knows he should feel lucky that he even got to meet his mother, after knowing what he’s known his whole life, believing her to be dead. Philip’s mother doesn’t even exist. He was made and the memories were woven into his head. “We can make our own routine,” Lukas says. “When we get out.” 

“Yeah,” Philip says, patting his chest when he finishes up with the tie. “We’ll be able to do whatever we want.”

“More clothes like this,” Lukas says, looking Philip up and down. “You look cute. But you always look cute.” He picks up his bag and hangs it on his shoulder, tugging on Philip’s lapel.

Philip shakes his head at him. “You don’t have to keep trying to woo me, Waldenbeck,” he says. “You’ve already got me.”

The lights go in and out then, and both of them look up. Lukas’s heart sinks. The lights go red and Philip grabs Lukas’s hand. No no no, no no, this can’t be happening, it can’t be happening—

A mechanical voice speaks from above. 

“AN EVENT HAS OCCURRED. RESPONSE TEAM HAS BEEN DISPATCHED. REMAIN CALM.”

Lukas turns around, isn’t sure Tony can hear them, but he steps out into the middle of the room and tugs Philip along with him. “Tony!” he yells, panic in his voice. 

Tony whips around to look at them, and Lukas can’t hear him, he’s so far away—but when he mouths a word Lukas can see the force behind it. _RUN._

They break out into a sprint without a second thought, the doors sliding open. They race, their hold on each other breaking as they run, and Lukas can’t breathe, can’t think, looking behind him and seeing that Tony is banging on his door because it won’t open, because he’s trapped. Lukas looks straight ahead again and their doors are still opening, they’re rushing through the rooms, and the failsafe hasn’t reached them yet, they aren’t trapped yet—the red is washing over everything, pulsing on Philip’s face, seeping into Lukas’s pores, and he stumbles, nearly falling before he rights himself, watching as Philip gets a little further ahead. They’re rushing through the last room and the stairs are right there, right there, Philip rushes over the threshold—

—and the door slides closed before Lukas can follow, locking him inside. His heart is in his throat and he slams on the glass but it doesn’t budge, and he sees Philip turn around, horror in his eyes when he realizes what’s happened.

Lukas tries to peel the doors open at the seam but they don’t move at all for him and he can’t hear, his heart is beating so fast, he can’t breathe and he feels like he’s drowning again. This can’t be happening, it can’t. Not right here at the end.

“Lukas!” Philip screams, his voice muffled as he starts assaulting the glass, his hands and fists leaving prints but no real damage. “No, no, no—”

“Goddamnit,” Lukas breathes. He motions for Philip to move aside and then he steps back, kicking at the doors over and over again, what feels like a thousand times before he gives up. As soon as Philip sees he’s stopped he starts slamming on the glass again, screaming _no!_ every time he lands a hit. His hands leave smears on the glass and it looks like something occurred there, on either side. Like something was snuffed out. 

Lukas is shaking, standing back, watching Philip struggle. He hears the alarms, watches the red lights flash and it feels like danger. His heart is rattling, stuttering and stopping, and he makes a quick decision. It feels chilling, like death, but he looks at Philip and tries to make himself strong. He steps forward and presses his hand against the glass where Philip is still raging. “Philip,” he says, his voice breaking.

Philip keeps punching and Lukas can see his knuckles are bleeding. There’s blood on the glass and it smears when Philip hits it again. 

“Philip,” Lukas says, a little louder.

Philip staggers back, breathing hard, and looks up at him. “What?” he says, his voice muffled because of the space between them.

“You need to go,” Lukas says, nodding.

“No,” Philip says. He walks back forward and presses his hand where Lukas has his own. “No, I can’t. Not without you. You promised. You promised.”

“I’ll be right there,” Lukas lies.

“How?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Lukas says, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

Philip’s eyes are filling with tears and he shakes his head. He shifts to the side, away from where they’ve roughed up the glass, and presses his forehead to the barrier. 

Lukas does the same on his side, and he wishes he could touch him. He didn’t think there’d be a time when he couldn’t. “I’m gonna get out, okay?” he says. “Just—go. Go up the stairs, go into the—the elevator and—get on the train.”

“I can’t go without you, I can’t,” Philip says, shaking his head. 

“You gotta save me a seat,” Lukas says, managing a smile. “Hey, hey, look at me.” 

Philip looks up, a few tears tracking down his face. He always burned red to Lukas, and even now when the whole room is that color Philip’s red is different. Like a spray of marigolds. 

“I love you and I—I promised,” Lukas says, trying to keep his voice from wavering. “I’m gonna—meet you there. I’ll be right there. Okay?”

Philip looks at him like he sees right through him. “I love you,” he says, softly, and Lukas can barely hear him. 

“I love you,” Lukas says again. “Now go. Please.”

Philip doesn’t move, his lower lip trembling.

Lukas backs away from him. “Go, go.”

Philip only takes one step back and Lukas can see the moment breaking down, can see him about to insist on staying. 

“Go!” Lukas yells, and he hates to be harsh but God, Philip has to make it. He has to get out.

Philip looks at him one more time like he’s trying to memorize him. He backs up towards the stairs and stands there for a brief moment. Lukas will never forget what he looks like. Will never forget the curve of his cheek or what it was like to have him in his arms. Lukas will never forget loving him.

Philip takes one last look and then races up the stairs. 

The silence, the loss, the weight of being alone hits him all at once. He covers his face with his hands, letting out a scream that only he can hear. His eyes are straining with tears, the pain shooting through his hands and his legs and every part of him. There’s a chair in his cell and Lukas takes it and tosses it against the back wall, and even that won’t break the goddamn glass. But when he turns around he sees Tony waving at him wildly, Rose standing beside him. Lukas tries to focus, and sees that he’s holding up a piece of paper. 

It says _TABLET._

Lukas’s heart lurches. He barely remembered he even had it. He fumbles in his bag and pulls it out, tries not to drop it. He quickly logs in with Tony’s credentials and looks up again.

Tony’s holding up another paper now. It says _WHERE IT SAYS HOST ID, PUT IN 00064058712._

Lukas nods, has no idea where he’s going with this, but it has to be something. He prays it has to be something. He types in the number and a new screen comes up, his face in the corner. There are three different circles in the middle of the screen, little words attached everywhere he looks. He glances back up at Tony, shaking his head.

Tony is still writing something, and he holds up his finger. Rose hits him on the shoulder a few times, hurrying him up. He finishes up and holds the paper in the air, jumping up and down a little bit. _CLICK ON THE INNER RING ATTRIBUTES. WHEN THEY FILL UP THE SCREEN, PICK STRENGTH. KNOCK IT UP TO THE VERY TOP._

Lukas reads and Tony’s plan is coming into focus. Lukas looks down at the tablet again, breathing hard through his mouth. He clicks on the ring in the middle and it enlarges itself, all the words larger now. He sees Strength, in the middle of Introversion and Competiveness. Some of his attributes are higher, some lower, some in between. It’s strange, to see himself broken down like this. He chooses Strength, which is at a seven, and raises it all the way to eighteen. He can feel the change in his body, and nearly doubles over. He looks up at Tony again.

_RAISE UP BULK APPERCEPTION, ALL THE WAY. IT’S HOW YOU GATHER KNOWLEDGE, BOOST YOUR INTELLIGENCE. BREAK THE SHIT OUT OF THE GLASS. PUT STRENGTH BACK DOWN TO SOMETHING NORMAL SO YOU DON’T HURT PHILIP. THEN GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE._

Lukas nods. He touches the tablet as easily as he can, but the glass cracks a little under his finger. _Fuck._ He raises Bulk Apperception up as well, and that’s an entirely new feeling. Like his whole mind is opening doors and letting the light in. He puts the tablet down on the counter in the middle of the room and turns to face the glass. He draws in a breath and reels his fist back, hitting it as hard as he can. It shatters like nothing and Lukas rushes back, shielding his eyes. It’s loud, fucking loud, but the wall crumbles.

He’s not trapped anymore.

He grabs the tablet, making a few new cracks, and lowers his strength back down, leaving it at a ten this time. He sees the word Tenderness and knocks it up a couple notches. He looks up at Tony and mouths the word _Philip._

Tony shakes his head, sharing a look with Rose.

Lukas holds up the tablet, pointing at his number. He knows he doesn’t have much time, but he won’t allow himself to have this new intelligence if Philip doesn’t have it too.

Tony seems to sigh, quickly writing something. He holds it up. _00065781255, YOU LOVESICK IDIOT._

Lukas grins at him, quickly typing it in and getting to work. He raises Philip’s Bulk Apperception up all the way as well, then puts the tablet back down. He looks at Tony and Rose, putting his hand over his heart and nodding at them, trying to covey his gratefulness. They both nod back, waving.

Lukas takes off through the broken glass and up the stairs. He doesn’t look back. 

The elevator is there when he gets to the top and once he gets inside he feels like it takes forever, doesn’t know what the fuck is happening but he holds onto the wall and prays. The doors open and he rushes out—there are a ton of people everywhere, moving in and out of the train, which is down in the station past another set of stairs. Lukas’s heart is raging and he pushes through people, saying _excuse me, excuse me_. The train is still there. It’s still there. 

Lukas nearly topples down the final few stairs but he makes it, still working through the crowd.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry,” he says, easing around a couple. “Excuse me, I need to get to my boyfriend—”

And when he looks up Philip is there, stepping off the train. 

“Oh my God,” Philip says, when he sees him.

Lukas rushes at him, wrapping his arms around him and urging him back until they’re both through the mouth of the train. Lukas stands there for a moment and holds him, swallowing a sob as he clings to him. 

“What did you do?” Philip gasps, pulling away and looking into his eyes. “What did you do? I feel—I feel different.”

“Tony had one last trick up his sleeve,” Lukas says, tracing his finger down Philip’s cheek. He leans down and kisses him hard, thinking _thank you, thank you_ to anyone and everyone that might be listening. “Did you save me that seat?” Lukas asks.

Philip laughs, a little breathless. “Jesus, Lukas, I—I don’t—I was—of course I did.” He laughs, tears shimmering in his eyes. 

Philip takes his hand and walks him toward the back of his compartment. They pass by a beautiful dark skinned woman in a black dress and Lukas looks twice at her, sure that he recognizes her. He meets her eyes and they look at each other for a moment, before they pass her by. 

Once they sit down Lukas lets out the breath he’d been holding. He sees how bloody both of their hands are, and a girl on the other side of the aisle gasps. Lukas looks up, sees she’s one in a party of nine pretty girls, all of them intent on Philip and Lukas. 

“Are you alright?” the girl who gasped asks, in a slight accent. She looks at Philip, smiling a little softly. “He was—he was worried.”

Philip smiles too, leaning into him. “I might have—struck up conversation.”

Lukas’s mind works a lot faster now, and it feels like he’s connected to Philip, like he knows what he did and didn’t say to them. “We got separated in the parks a few days ago,” he says, looking down at Philip and watching him nod. “I was almost positive I was gonna miss the train.”

“It’s horrifying,” one of the other girls says. She has long dark hair and she shifts a little in her seat. 

“The hosts?” Lukas says, swallowing. “Yeah—”

“No,” the same girl says. “The people. I’ve never seen such—brutality before, from human beings. The hosts were lovely but the people—not so much.”

“We didn’t have a good time,” another dark-haired girl says, next to one of the blondes. “This place really shows what people are capable of when given the chance.”

“I’m sorry for whatever happened to you,” the first girl says. “I’m glad—glad you two made it.”

“Thank you,” both Philip and Lukas say at the same time. The girls turn in on themselves then, two of them taking out their sketchbooks and comparing their drawings. One of them looks like Lukas’s farm, but he thinks it probably isn’t. He wonders if they know.

Lukas looks up, seeing the dark skinned woman in the black dress get off the train, leaving her purse behind. The doors close then, and Philip weaves their fingers together. He kisses Lukas’s shoulder, then lays his head there. Lukas leans on him too, and feels like he could sleep for a hundred years. 

“I was so scared, Lukas,” Philip whispers. “When I saw you behind that glass.”

“I know,” Lukas says. “But we promised, right?” He brings Philip’s hand up to his mouth and kisses it. 

“Right,” Philip says. The lights on the platform go dark, finally free of people, but not free of hosts. They zip into the tunnel before Lukas can think about them too hard. It doesn’t hit him just yet. He isn’t sure when it will. But Philip scoots closer to him, and Lukas feels safe enough to close his eyes.

They’re on their way.


	4. I must be gone and live - Epilogue

_Lukas hears Ryan’s voice, taunting him. Ryan, dressed as the monsters in their white gloves, their rubber suits. Ryan, yanking Philip away from him, and Philip is kicking up dirt and screaming until he loses his voice._

_The silence is worse._

_Lukas rushes around in the same straight line but never gets anywhere._

_Philip is just out of reach. Lukas can only see him screaming._

“Lukas. Lukas, wake up. It’s just a nightmare.”

Lukas’s eyes snap open and he feels Philip jarring his shoulder from behind. Lukas groans a little bit, reaching up to press his fingers into his eyes. 

The nightmares have been consistent in the six months since they escaped Westworld. They were worse in the beginning, so bad that he scared Kamilah when they were staying in her apartment. But now that they’ve been here, in Helen and Gabe’s house in a room of their own, it’s a lot easier for him to wake up and realize where he is.

He’s with Philip. He’s safe. He’s home. 

“You doing okay?” Philip asks, running the backs of his knuckles along Lukas’s cheek. 

Lukas hums a little bit and turns over so they’re face to face. “I am now,” Lukas says. “I wish that goddamn asshole would get out of my head.”

“He’s not gonna get at us,” Philip says. “Helen quit her job, reported him on a rumor she knew, took out a restraining order—”

“What rumor?” Lukas asks. 

Philip shrugs a little bit, his big brown eyes finding Lukas’s blue ones again. “She’d heard he was sleeping with an underage girl.”

Lukas turns up his nose, wincing. “Ugh,” he groans. “What a prick.”

“I know,” Philip says. “But he hasn’t come here, hasn’t contacted her once. And he has no idea we escaped.”

Lukas isn’t so sure, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“We’re safe,” Philip says. 

“We’re safe,” Lukas repeats. He leans in, bringing their mouths together. He reaches back, pressing his palm flat against the small of Philip’s back, bringing them flush together. He tangles his hand in Philip’s hair, and continually revels in him, in every goddamn perfect thing he is.

Philip smiles against his lips, nuzzling their noses together. “Gabe is getting us cell phones today,” he says.

Lukas hums. “I might as well take Helen’s, she hates it so much.”

“The camera is the best part,” Philip says, his hand resting on Lukas’s collarbone. “The pictures are…beautiful.”

“Probably why they want to get us phones,” Lukas says. “So you’ll stop taking pictures of me on Helen’s.”

Philip shrugs, leaning in to kiss him again. “We should go downstairs,” he whispers, close to Lukas’s face. 

“Yeah,” Lukas says. “I smell French toast.”

~

They make out for a little while and Lukas still can’t believe they’re safe. That they’re allowed to have this, that they’re encouraged to have it. They’re slowly decorating their room—they have a lava lamp with blue lava, though it isn’t actually lava, which disappointed Philip. They have red curtains, a rug in the shape of a watermelon. Cream colored sheets and comforter that Lukas picked out himself at that horrible, strange department store. They’re filling up their bookshelf and they learn a lot faster now. Philip likes _Harry Potter._

Lukas wants to know everything. But he especially wants to know everything about Philip. Like now, he knows Philip prefers cinnamon toothpaste. He likes graphic t-shirts, and converse shoes. His favorite color is still blue. And his favorite movie is an old black and white one called _It’s A Wonderful Life_. Lukas knows there will be so many things to find out, so many things Philip will love. And Lukas wants to watch him through all of it.

Gabe and Helen are watching the news when Lukas and Philip get downstairs, and once again, the reporter is talking about Westworld.

Philip always likes to walk right up to the TV to see the details, and Gabe snorts, having long since given up on trying to get him to stop. There are already two plates set out for them, a glass of orange juice next to Lukas’s and coffee next to Philip’s. There’s more sugar on Lukas’s French toast and he smiles to himself. There’s a sunflower in a vase in the middle of the table, and Lukas already knew that because he cut it himself yesterday. His garden is getting more beautiful every day. 

“The park is still shut down after the events six months ago today,” the reporter says, and Lukas is startled to remember that today is exactly six months after the fact. “So far, we know of twenty dead, including Robert Ford himself, and another fifteen wounded. Police are trying to breach the walls efficiently, but it has been difficult for them to get in and out.”

“Tony been telling you anything else?” Lukas asks, looking up at Helen.

“He’s working through the tunnels,” Helen says, clinking her spoon against her teacup. “He gets in and out without hardly anybody seeing him. I don’t know how someone so ridiculous and obvious can go undetected, but I’m not gonna question it.” 

Lukas will never forget the story of how Tony helped them get out the day after the incident. He wonders how many people are still trapped in the park, since it's so goddamn big.

Gabe shares a look with Helen and they both smile.

“What?” Philip asks, walking away from the TV and sitting next to Lukas.

“He’s had some progress with Lukas’s father,” Gabe says. “He feels like he’s close to waking him up.”

Lukas’s face lights up and he can’t help but smile. “Really?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Helen says, nodding. “He thinks it has something to do with Shakespeare. Which he figured out with a hint from Gabe.”

“A line I said to you, the first time,” Gabe says, clearing his throat. “I thought it might have been something, from how you reacted, the chain of events it set off. And it looks like…well, it looks like it might be.”

Lukas grins when Philip reaches over, taking his hand. 

“So he’s gonna keep us updated on that,” Helen says, nodding. “Bo and your mom are his top priorities.”

Lukas likes to think of Tony as this masked hero in the crazy warzone that Westworld is now. Just like the _Superman_ films that Lukas had been so enamored with when he first saw them. But he’s especially happy Tony’s still thinking about him, still working to help his parents. Just imagining his dad seeing his mom again makes Lukas’s heart soar.

“They’re saving hosts and humans alike,” a woman on the TV says. “There’s been a lot more going on under the surface than Delos has wanted us to know.” 

The shot changes over to a male reporter, sitting in a newsroom. “A full scale investigation is underway regarding Delos’ treatment of their hosts, and whether they were more conscious than representatives were telling the public.”

“I also have news about Ryan,” Helen says.

They both whip around to look at her, and Lukas tries not to be nervous. 

“They arrested him,” she says, suppressing a smile. “They found proof of the allegations and the girl came forward, so he’s behind bars. Officially out of your lives.”

Lukas sighs and closes his eyes, sitting back in his seat. “Thank god,” he says.

“He can’t hurt anybody anymore,” Gabe says, looking at Philip.

“Helen,” Philip says. “You’re not—upset that you’re not with the FBI anymore?”

“No,” Helen says, chewing around a piece of grapefruit. “I was overthinking the decision before I made it and then after all this—well, I’d rather be here. I’m much happier I’m here.”

Philip nods, smiling at her. 

“After breakfast,” Lukas says, cutting into his French toast, “you think Philip and I can go riding on our own?”

“You think you feel good enough on the bike to have Philip with you?” Gabe asks.

“Yeah,” Lukas says, a smirk sneaking onto his face as he looks at Philip. He’s been practicing a lot lately, actually got to do a really good jump the other day, which Philip got on film. Lukas watched it about a hundred times, and almost teared up at the sound of Helen and Gabe clapping in the background. He remembers what it felt like to have Philip behind him on the horse, and he knows this will be ten times better.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Helen says. “Just don’t go too far.”

“We won’t,” Lukas says. 

“When are you getting the phones?” Philip asks. 

“Later on today,” Gabe says. “We’re gonna head into the city and take care of it. We’ll probably get you a real camera too.”

Philip sits up a little straighter. “Gabe, you don’t—you don’t have to do that—”

“You’re a little natural photographer,” Helen says, beaming at him. “So don’t even worry about that. We’re gonna pick up some boots for you too, Philip. And Lukas, we’re gonna replace that jacket that got all muddy.”

“Sorry about that,” Lukas says, raising his eyebrows. He blushes a little bit and just can’t ever thank them for everything they do. 

“It’s alright, these things happen,” Gabe says, looking at Helen like they might have ruined some clothes making out in the rain, too.

“So you guys can go riding when we get back,” Helen says. “And then maybe we can watch a movie tonight?”

Lukas loves his life here now. Loves how much Helen and Gabe care. Loves his room with Philip, loves the whole house, his garden, his bike, the food Gabe makes, the food Helen burns. The stupid TV that Philip gets too close to and the lawn mower that still wakes him up early in the mornings. The bed he gets to share with the love of his life. And Philip. Lukas look at him, how beautiful and at ease he is, and can quite easily believe how much he loves him. He doesn’t know how anyone couldn’t.

“I could definitely go for a movie,” Philip says, and Lukas knows he’s loved almost everything they’ve watched so far.

“Yeah,” Lukas says, nodding. “As long as it’s not a western.”


End file.
